Dangerous Game
by amarybeth
Summary: Ron is dead, and Hermione finds her peace down violent and altogether unexpected avenues. Warning: Spoiler Alert, Violence, and Unsavory Sexual Situations, AU but canon-minded.
1. Beautiful Traitor

Note: The characters here represented are the property of JK Rowling. Absolutely no profits have been derived from this work, and no copyright infringement is intended.

1:00 a.m. 1st August, 1996

Narcissa Malfoy truly was a beautiful woman. Hers was an icy, regal beauty; so perfect as to seem artificial, but absolutely authentic. Only a woman as beautiful as Narcissa Malfoy could look so lovely in the throes of the Cruciatus.

Antonin Dolohov smiled down at her as she writhed, basking in the warmth of his master's approval, reveling in rewards of his careful work, and most deliciously, savoring the sight of an achingly beautiful Malfoy brought low.

She screamed less than he would have liked. Bella had shown no such restraint.

After a small eternity, the assault ceased. Narcissa curled in on herself, pulling her knees to her, keening softly as she struggled to regain her composure. As soon as she was able to find her voice, she spoke in a tremulous whisper.

"What have I done to offend, my lord? Whatever it is I…"

The Dark Lord raised his wand in threat as a man might do with the back of his hand and Narcissa cowered satisfyingly, wincing as she turned her head away.

"…I beg your forgiveness" she sobbed to the floor.

"Do not, Narcissa, force me to the usual theatrics," the Dark Lord barked. "I will ask you once more. Why does Dolohov tell me that he saw you and your sister in such an unlikely place as Spinner's End earlier this evening?"

Narcissa's eyes snapped to Bellatrix Lestrange who stood pale and remorseful in the corner. She looked back at Narcissa and anger twisted her somber expression.

"I was… We were," Narcissa began, eyes still locked on Bellatrix.

"You will look at me when you speak," the Dark Lord hissed. Both women gave him their eyes instantly. "Bellatrix can be of little help to you in any case. She has received her due discipline without being allowed to confess. I wish to hear this confession from your own lips as you are undoubtedly the architect and she the victim of this insubordination." He twitched his white wand threateningly in his fingers. "And besides, I dislike punishing Bella."

Narcissa's eyes flickered warily to the wand in his hands.

"Severus is a trusted friend of Lucius'," she began. "And I wanted his council…regarding my son. The task you have given him, it…we are honored…but he is only a boy. I hoped Severus might, offer advice or even help, just help him, somehow…help keep him safe." Her aristocratic tones cracked on that final word.

The Dark Lord turned from the trembling Narcissa to gaze at her dark sister, his eyes narrowing with fury. "Bella," he said softly; his voice full of danger.

Bellatrix didn't even attempt to occlude when the Dark Lord entered her mind.

Voldemort found the memory in seconds…_Narcissa pleading with Severus Snape to save her son, dropping to her knees before him and clutching his hand in her own, gazing up at him in desperation and obedience_.

The ice cold sensation of fear pierced the Dark Lord's chest at the sight and he withdrew rapidly from Bellatrix's mind, leaving her swaying. Bellatrix crumpled to the floor as he reeled away from her, his frenzied movements leading him rapidly to her sister. He stooped to grasp Narcissa's perfect jaw in his white hand. He was too shaken to perform the spell wordlessly and his voice sounded almost hysterical as he hissed "Legilimens" and entered Narcissa Malfoy's mind.

He watched in horror as Bellatrix, his most fiercely loyal servant, cast the spell to bind Narcissa Malfoy, the sole provider of his extensive and necessary material resources, to Severus Snape.

Snape.

_Villain, _he thought wildly. _Usurper, _his hands began to shake. _Traitor, _he clenched his jaw, trying not to snarl and scream.

He was his most dangerous spy, his most precious and precarious ally. No one else knew so much, no one else had such power, and no one else was so maddeningly enigmatic. The Dark Lord was a brilliant manipulator – effortlessly weaving the desires and fears of his followers and victims into a straight jacket of control. But Severus Snape had, for many years now, appeared to have none to tangle. The power hungry, wounded, rejected and unloved little boy, grasping at the strands of affection and belonging so hopelessly, had long since disappeared. And the dark man who remained was something of a mystery, and also, the Dark Lord thought with a sickening lurch of terror, a boon that he simply could not carry on without. For now…

Voldemort pulled from the vision and stood, turning away from the beautiful sisters.

He wanted to kill the stupid Malfoy bitch and then open Snape's throat over her husband's Persian carpet. He allowed the fantasy to placate him for a long moment.

Taking a calming breath he began to think rationally. Bellatrix was still his loyal servant. He could feel her remorse and her devotion as he read her thoughts. That she acted as Binder for the Unbreakable Vow…that was an act of idiocy no doubt fueled by her endless rivalry with Snape. Bellatrix may have been his favorite, the Dark Lord thought, but she too knew the influence Snape had, and it drove her mad. She must never have believed he would take the vow. The shocked look on her face as she cast the spell said that she didn't believe it even as the third circle of flame entwined the wrists of Snape and Narcissa, and then it was too late.

Narcissa, he could see, was purely motivated by foolish motherly affection. She would, as she had said to Bella in the memory, 'do anything' to protect Draco. He would have Dolohov continue to tail her and now she would know it. That threat would be neutralized.

As for Snape – there was nothing for it. He needed him in position to kill Dumbledore when Draco inevitably failed, needed him to continue to spy until that time, would need him afterwards to take over the school and begin the cleansing process. So, until some future time, what was the old adage? …K_eep your enemies closer._

He had no other choice. Voldemort clenched his fists and silently swore the moment Snape outlived his usefulness, his hubris would be answered for.

Focusing on the elaborate carvings etched into the marble of the wall before him, the Dark Lord finally spoke, "Dolohov, you have done admirably. Leave us now."

Dolohov bowed deeply before slipping quietly from the room, a satisfied smile on his face. The Dark Lord schooled his features into controlled anger and slowly turned to face the Black sisters.

"You have both disobeyed me tonight. Some might call it betrayal."

"No, my lord, please! I would never…" Bella screamed.

"Silence, Bellatrix!" he snapped. "You will learn to control yourself with regard to Severus Snape. Your insistence on his treachery led you to actions of unprecedented recklessness this evening. You will leave us now and you will not speak of tonight's events to anyone."

Bellatrix nodded vigorously as she rose. She held his gaze as she escaped, mouthing a heartfelt "Forgive me" as she went.

The Dark Lord turned back to look at the small, dark shape that was Narcissa Malfoy. She hadn't moved and appeared drained, exhausted. Judging from all that he'd seen, she'd spent the majority of her evening prostrating herself in tears. _She must have a headache_, he thought without sympathy.

"Narcissa, look at me."

Blue eyes met red reptilian slits.

He bent forward slightly before he spoke. "One must have hope in these difficult times." He said it softly and with a convincing look of concern. Narcissa blinked, confused.

"I, for instance, hope that in the new world that we are building the name Malfoy will still grace these halls," his eyes roamed up and around the beautiful room briefly before coming to rest once again on Narcissa's face.

"I hope that Draco will continue to be, as you said, honored by the task to which he has been appointed and that he will continue to apply himself to its completion. I hope that you understand that the moment you speak of the Vow that you made with Severus Snape tonight to your son or to anyone else, I will kill Draco," Narcissa made a choked noise, "I hope that you comprehend my magnanimity in allowing you to live after this transgression."

He smiled cruelly and leaned even further towards her, now speaking in an icy whisper that grazed the skin of her forehead.

"And finally, I hope that you are able to remove yourself from my presence…before I change my mind."

As soon as the door closed behind her the Dark Lord cast a silencing ward on the room. Picking up a crystal statue from the ornately carved desk he flung it against the marble, drowning the explosion of shards in a blood curdling scream of rage.


	2. Insomnia

Note: The characters here represented are the property of JK Rowling. Absolutely no profits have been derived from this work, and no copyright infringement is intended.

"Harry! Harry, wake up! Harry…HARRY!"

Harry sat bolt upright in his bed with a shout, hand flying to his fiercely burning scar, ears ringing with the sound of breaking crystal and high, rasping screams.

"Hermione. We need to see Dumbledore. We need to see Dumbledore right now!" Stars exploded in his vision.

"What happened? What is it?"

"No time. We have to talk to Dumbledore…there's no time."

Hermione stood for a moment in frozen panic, until Harry suddenly shoved her back, leaned over the bed, and threw up.

"Oh god. I'll get him. It's ok. We'll see Professor Dumbledore."

Less than thirty minutes later, Dumbledore arrived alone at Number 12 Grimmauld place.

Hermione heard his quiet entrance from the kitchen doorway where she stood, staring at Harry. He was seated in a chair pulled up close to the stove, a steaming mug of something at his foot and his head between his hands. Mrs. Weasley was bustling about, inventing things to do all over the kitchen though there appeared to be little requiring her attention.

"Professor Dumbledore, Harry's in here. He won't tell us what he saw." Hermione said, setting her jaw and dropping her shoulders, physically manifesting her extreme effort to calm herself.

"Thank you Miss Granger" he said as he approached and then moved passed her, into the kitchen, softly closing the wooden door behind him.

Hermione understood herself to be kindly dismissed and moved from the doorway to sit next to a shivering Ginny on the stairs. She provided her companion no comfort as she might have done even three months before. In fact, the only thought that went through her head as she covertly glanced at her twitching companion was, _Please God, don't let her start crying_.

Professor Dumbledore had only been with Harry for a moment when Mrs. Weasley emerged from the kitchen through the swinging door looking anxious. She said nothing to the young women on the steps – there was nothing much to say – and settled for joining them with wringing hands.

Several silent minutes passed.

Hermione was leaning forward and sideways with the effort to eavesdrop, pressing her head against the thick ebony banister to her right as she attempted to get closer to the closed door, when she felt it. Her compulsive curiosity caused her to be the only one to feel the headmaster's simple ward flare to life for just a moment before flickering out again like a candle. She barely had time to glance at her stair partners and register that they had not noticed when the swinging door slowly opened.

The headmaster stepped into the foyer and twinkled for a moment at the undoubtedly humorous picture the three women presented, huddled up like mice on the stairs. He spoke in a hushed voice so as not to disturb the infamous hallway portrait. "Harry has had a disturbing nightmare, but he's now feeling better and asking to return to bed. He's very tired after the ordeal and I would ask that you all defer your extensive questioning until tomorrow so that he might have a chance to rest." He smiled faintly.

Ginny and Mrs. Weasley stood quickly and silently to retrieve Harry from his chair by the stove. Hermione also rose and stepped towards the kitchen but only to glance at Harry long enough to note that he was dazed and disoriented, and apparently falling asleep on his feet.

Her eyes flicked back to the headmaster, a question on the tip of her tongue.

"Professor," Hermione began.

"Goodnight, Miss Granger," said Dumbledore softly and he gave her a significant moment's glance over his half moon spectacles before turning and silently disappearing into the black depths of the hallway.

Hermione stood in the dark for a few moments. She couldn't have explained how she knew it or why, but she was sure that Dumbledore had just acknowledged that something was amiss and in the same instance instructed her beyond a shadow of a doubt to keep absolutely silent.

He needn't have bothered. _Who would I tell?_, Hermione wondered as she made her way up the creaky stairs and into the room next to Harry's. Locking the door behind her she crossed the floor and sat gingerly on the midnight blue, velvet armchair. Picking up the book she'd dropped earlier at the sound of Harry's screaming she opened it on her knee and resumed staring out the window into the black night.

She remained that way for many hours, mentally re-examining the events of the evening. When dawn broke across the navy sky she had long since abandoned the analysis of two disturbing conclusions: first, that was no nightmare; and second, after his meeting with Dubmledore, Harry had worn the unmistakable, bewildered look of a victim of a mild Obliviate.

As the sky became the sickly green gray that indicated morning Hermione pulled herself slowly out of her chair. She moved with deliberation as she dressed; her exhausted body feeling as though it were submerged in some viscous substance.

She wandered down to the kitchen and made the strongest coffee she could, staring at her hands all the while as she leaned against the kitchen counter and listened to her little Muggle coffee machine bubble. Taking a mug and the whole pot with her, she made her way to the small household library and shut the door with no intention of emerging for the rest of the day, not even to ask Harry about his 'nightmare'. She was already convinced that when he woke, Harry would remember very little of the ordeal.

The remaining days of August passed much like that one, until finally the first of September arrived. Standing before the neatly made bed and next to her precisely packed trunk, Hermione resigned herself to reaching for the final item, hidden away in a drawer of the side table. She'd put it there two months earlier, unable to look at it, unable to acknowledge its existence, and she hadn't touched it since.

With trembling fingers, Hermione slowly extracted the heavy frame, pausing for a moment to look at the red leather backing, before carefully turning it over in her hands.

She looked down at her own face. She and Ron and Harry were on the Quidditch grounds and it was snowing. It was the beginning of their third year and they were laughing and waving, laughing and waving, laughing and waving.

Hermione expected to cry, wanted to even. But tears didn't come, even when she looked very carefully at the odd lopsidedness of Ron's grin. Her eyes drifted away from him and over her own image coming to rest on the boy at her other side. His messy black hair, his laughing green eyes…

She heard the glass covering crack as the frame collided with the wall before thudding to the ground. Disappointing. She would have liked it to watch it shatter. She stood staring at it where it lay for a long time until Mrs. Weasley's voice echoed up the stairs from the first floor landing.

"Hermione?


	3. Nightmares

Note: The characters here represented are the property of JK Rowling. Absolutely no profits have been derived from this work, and no copyright infringement is intended.

4:00 a.m. 2nd September, 1996

It is the same dream she has been dreaming at Grimmauld place for two months…

_The floor is cold beneath her. The ache in her chest is excruciating. When Neville shifts her slightly as he grasps her wrist to feel for her faint pulse she's sure she must scream in agony, but she doesn't hear her voice. Later, when she feels her body lifted, she loses consciousness from the pain._

_She doesn't know how long she is in darkness, but suddenly her terrified peace is interrupted by the sound of laughter. Ron is laughing. She wants to smile too at the familiar sound, but she can't._

_The laughter changes. Ron sounds panicked. He yells suddenly and then he's making struggling sounds. Hermione tries to turn to look at him but she remains frozen; still. _

_He sounds as if he's choking. Why won't someone help him? She struggles – her mind battling her body, trying desperately to move, to look at him, to call out to him. _

_Now Ron is gasping and there is a sickening wet sound as he hits the ground. She hears the sound of his clothes rustling and his trainers squealing against the floor as he thrashes. It reminds her of the sounds of the twins wrestling after being Silencio'd by their father._

_Her breath has quickened and she worries that she will again lose consciousness from the agony. She doesn't want to leave Ron alone, even if he can't hear her. She fights to stay awake._

_And then, quite suddenly, Ron is quiet. She prays that he has just passed out from the struggle, but she knows better._

_Hermione lies quiet and listens to Ron Weasley die._

She awoke to find herself twisted almost painfully into her sheets and covered in sweat. Flying upright she tore at the material, finding the sensation of being restricted absolutely unbearable. Quickly her movements changed from attempted escape to aggressive attack as she grasped the fabric and tried to shred it, tearing at it with her nails, beating it with her fists. The sudden taste of blood in her mouth gave her pause, and she realized that she had bitten her lip in an attempt to keep from shrieking. Sweating and shaking she collapsed back on the disheveled bed and stared up into the Gryffindor-red canopy until breakfast.


	4. Wandless

Note: The characters here represented are the property of JK Rowling. Absolutely no profits have been derived from this work, and no copyright infringement is intended.

19th September, 1996

It had been another bad morning. The nightmare had woken her earlier than usual: a mere two in the morning. She'd had to lie awake for four hours before she could go to the kitchens for her strong, black coffee. The elves had grown used to her early morning presence, and no longer ran for fear of being forcibly clothed.

It was one of the days when she knew she would find it difficult to look at Harry, or hear the sound of his voice. She hid in her four-poster instead, curtains drawn, coffee pot as companion, while the rest of Hogwarts rose for a new day.

After casting her fourth warming charm on her mug Hermione glanced down at her watch. 10:00 a.m. She should have been in Ancient Runes for an hour already. She wondered idly what Professor Babbling would do and say before realizing that she didn't care. The thought of sitting through an hour and a half's discussion of dead symbols was simply impossible. She poured another cup.

Trembling and exhausted, Hermione made her way to the dungeons forty five minutes later for double Potions. Ancient Runes was an elective that she could live without, but skipping Potions wasn't worth the repercussions, Harry or no. As she reached the classroom door where students were gathering she spotted him as he broke away from the crowd to meet her, smiling and saying her name as he walked.

"Happy Birthday, Hermione." At the sound of his voice she felt a sickening rush of fury instantly followed by a wave of guilt.

Hermione stared at him for a long, awkward moment, but was saved a reply by a boisterous Professor Slughorn.

The class seemed endless and by the time they were finally dismissed Hermione was practically nauseous from the constant pitch and roll of her emotions. She packed quickly, ejaculated something about headaches to Harry, and made her escape.

The fresh, cool, fall air filled her lungs as she burst through the courtyard door. Throwing it shut behind her, she slammed herself back against the ancient wood and slowly bent forward, letting her head hang between her shoulders.

She remained in that pose for a few minutes before pulling herself up with effort. Turning toward the Forbidden Forest, she started to walk.

Hermione thought about Harry.

If she was honest, she hated him, and she despised herself for that. Academically she knew that the night at the Ministry wasn't his fault. _None of this is his fault_. He had only done what he thought was right. One could even look at this situation in really spiteful terms and say that he had paid his dues for his error. He had lost his best friend and his godfather as a result of his rash action, and the guilt that Hermione knew he felt day in and day out was indescribable. Academically, she knew that no one suffered as he did. But that didn't make it better. And in the end, as always, there was no more Ron and no more laughter. She would bear Dolohov's scar for the rest of her life. And night after night, she would be haunted by the horrible sounds that narrated the cruel taking of one, and the vicious gift of the other.

Hermione stopped walking and grabbed her hair with both fists. It was semantics, all of it. She could reason and rationalize all day, the facts of the situation were always the same. If Harry had just practiced Occlumency more, if he had just tried a little harder, maybe he would have been able to see that it was a trap. Hermione had nagged him all year; practiced with him; pleaded…and he hadn't listened.

Tugging her hair hard and squeezing her eyes shut, Hermione let the pain redirect her thoughts…There was, after all, another side of the logical coin. Forget Harry. None of this would be of consequence if not for Voldemort. Dolohov. Lestrange. Malfoy. She clenched her teeth and trembled.

The names rolled through her mind like a mantra as she made her way back up to the castle for Defense Against the Dark Arts. Somehow the lunch hour had passed.

...

Hermione was nearing the one hour mark of watching Dean Thomas try to disarm her non-verbally. He looked like he seriously needed to have a lie down, maybe even a cry out. At this point she was tempted to toss her wand in the air for his benefit, if only to give herself something to do in retrieving it.

Hermione, by contrast, had disarmed Dean less than five minutes in. She usually tried to hold herself back – to only be the best by a reasonable margin. Apparently she hadn't had the patience to feign incompetence today. And she was about to pay for it.

"Typically abysmal, Longbottom." The disinterested chastisement resonated in deep tones under the high vaulted ceiling.

Neville had just made an especially animated attempt at disarming Harry and had managed, in the process, to trip over his own rapidly growing feet.

"Since no amount of written theory has yet been able to awaken the necessary mental faculties for nonverbal casting, perhaps you would benefit from a demonstration." Neville turned, if possible, even pinker and studied the floor with great intensity.

"Miss Granger." Hermione's eyes closed for a moment as if in prayer. "At the front."  
A pause. "And Mr. Malfoy, I think."

Hermione froze.

"A problem?" the professor asked in a tone that clearly forbade an affirmative answer.

"I…No, sir." Hermione managed before taking a shaky step, and another. She stared down at her feet all the way to the slightly raised platform at the front of the room.

She didn't trust herself to look at Draco Malfoy. She didn't want to look up at him and see Lucius – a man who was there that night, a man who brought with him Antonin Dolohov, a man who was part of the distraction that left Ron all alone.

Hermione watched her hands begin to tremble as the familiar rage overcame her. Through the haze of memory she realized that the professor's voice, which had slowly drifted out of her conscious mind, had ceased, which only meant that the demonstration had begun. And if the demonstration had begun and Hermione herself hadn't cast, then Draco was about to…

Without thinking Hermione slashed the air with her wand sending Draco's perfectly respectable, silent Impedimenta ricocheting off to her left. A split second later, she flung her arm back across her body and knocked Draco off his feet with the force of her Expelliarmus. She heard his wand clatter against the stone wall somewhere behind her.

Hermione knew she should get control of herself, knew she should stop, and knew as she lifted her eyes to look at her wandless opponent that she couldn't help herself. His Slytherin green tie became monochrome with his blond hair and gray eyes as she raised her wand again.

Just as Hermione's arm fell, just as her curse was about to burst forth, she felt what seemed to be a wall of energy blast into existence just in front of her. She stopped short of the incredibly powerful Protego shield and saw the image of a cowering Draco Malfoy blur slightly through the magical film. The next second it was gone and Hermione turned, with wand arm at the ready, to glare at its source.

Professor Snape appeared bored as he stared down Hermione's fury and lazily flicked his wand towards her. She didn't react to the sensation of the thin length of wood flying out of her grip. She simply watched as the professor caught it easily and pocketed it in a fluid motion. A professor had never been forced to confiscate her wand before. Never. In the culture of wizarding students, it was akin to being struck with a ruler.

Above the thundering of her heart she heard her professor dismiss the class. She didn't know how long it took for the last student, probably Harry stalling for her, to file out. The heavy door slammed. Hermione flinched at the sound and looked up sharply, her eyes refocusing on the room.

"Professor Babbling tells me that you were not to be found this morning." The cold voice said quietly behind her. She turned slowly, her skin prickling, to face the professor. He looked, as always, like a marble statue; barely human but for his disdain.

"Where were you?" The question was punctuated by a narrowing of his black eyes.

"Reading…sir." Hermione was surprised by the tone of defiance in her own voice.

Professor Snape's eyes roamed over her for a moment, as if he were searching for something. Hermione managed to keep still under the scrutiny only by digging her nails into her palm. When the professor raised his eyes to hers again, one dark brow was arched mockingly. It made her think he'd noticed.

He straightened to his full height and silently produced her wand from within his black robes. The pale hand stretched forward, offering it to her handle first. As Hermione reached out to take it he spoke again.

"You will come to the Headmaster's office tonight at eight o'clock. If anyone should inquire, you will tell them that you are serving a well deserved…" he paused here for emphasis, "…detention with me."

Hermione was castigated and confused at once, but she simply replied, "Yes, sir" and closed her hand around the familiar wood before turning quickly towards the classroom door.

"And Miss Granger," her hand froze on the iron handle.

"Behave."


	5. Listening at Keyholes

Note: The characters here represented are the property of JK Rowling. Absolutely no profits have been derived from this work, and no copyright infringement is intended.

At two minutes to the hour Hermione approached the stone Gargoyle and thought to herself that this was one of the longer days of her young life. Ninety minutes of listening to Harry's well meant commiserations on her upcoming detention had not passed any more quickly than the preceding hours. And as she sat unresponsive, trying to ignore him without being noticed she'd had the opportunity to be filled with fear and regret about her behavior in Defense. She'd attacked an unarmed student and had expressed an attitude that bordered on mutinous when confronted by her professor. Evidently, ("Sugarplums!") she'd lost her mind.

The gargoyle jumped to the side revealing the spinning spiral staircase. Hermione took a deep breath and climbed on.

As was almost traditional in that ancient hallway, the sound of raised voices stilled her hand just as she reached to knock.

"…Albus! She's only just seventeen – "

Hermione's breath caught. She had no idea that Professor McGonegall's portrait had even woken up yet.

"Closer to eighteen, Minerva, if you recall the timeturner."

"I won't be drawn into a squabble over minutiae – you know perfectly well what I mean."

Tears sprung to Hermione's eyes as she grinned. Her Head of House was as stern and clipped in oils as she had been in life. It was oddly comforting.

There was a short pause. "I do know, Minerva. I share your objections," Professor Dumbledore's voice had become very soft and sad. "And I must ask her regardless."

"Minerva," A familiar, deep, drawl... "She is not so very young."

There was a long silence before Professor McGonagall's portrait responded in almost a whisper.

"_You_ think not?" Hermione wondered at the emphasis on the word.

Professor Snape made no audible answer. There was a heavy pause.

"Well it seems I am overruled. I'm experiencing a sense of dejavu, Albus."

"Oh, Minerva," Dumbledore said quietly. He sounded agonized.

"I won't watch something like this unfold. Not again."

"Then leave us to it. It is your luxury to turn away," Snape's voice again, now impatient. "Those of us still here must do what must be done, however offended our sensibilities."

Hermione could practically feel the icy glare. There was a strangely muffled sound of a slamming door. Hermione could only deduce that Professor McGonegall had stormed out of her portrait and into another.

"Luxury? Really, Severus." Professor Dumbledore sounded more tired than before.

Hermione felt that she had eavesdropped long enough. She straightened, and knocked three times. The door opened of its own volition, revealing the scene inside.

Professor Dumbledore was seated wearing a kind smile, the warmth of which didn't quite reach his eyes.

The darkness to Hermione's right shifted and out of the corner of her eye the hawk like profile of the former potions master became evident in the moonlight of a window. He didn't approach the small sphere of golden candlelight surrounding the Headmaster's enormous desk, and Hermione was struck with the notion that he'd moved simply to alert her of his location in the room. She was glad. If he'd spoken without warning or suddenly appeared she might very well have squeaked.

"Miss Granger," her eyes returned to the headmaster, "please do sit."


	6. Within These Walls

Note: The characters here represented are the property of JK Rowling. Absolutely no profits have been derived from this work, and no copyright infringement is intended.

20th September, 1996

Hermione felt the sunlight creep over her face through the crack between her four poster curtains. She hadn't slept well, but for the first time in months she didn't care. It wasn't nightmares that had haunted her thoughts.

It was as if her mind had been released from a prison whose only window had faced directly into the miserable past. She'd spent the last few quiet hours in contemplation of seemingly lost concepts: possibilities, solutions, action…the future. There was also fear. But fear was a change from impotent anger or intolerable guilt, and so she welcomed it.

Closing her eyes slowly, she reviewed for a countless time, the events of the previous evening…

"…Miss Granger, as I'm sure you've deduced this will not be a detention. But before we begin I would like to ask you where you were this morning."

Hermione felt no desire whatsoever to be anything but honest and respectful in the face of Professor Dumbledore. What she did desire was to disappear into the floor. The weighty opulence of this ancient room was rapidly becoming stifling.

"I was in Gryffindor tower."

"And at lunch?" He asked gently.

"Out walking, sir." Hermione hated how small her voice sounded.

Dumbledore gave a small nod before speaking again. "And do you wish to discontinue your studies in Ancient Runes?"

Hermione didn't even hesitate before blurting, "Yes."

Her eyes wandered of their own accord to Professor McGonagall's empty portrait, expecting to find censure there in the empty gray canvas.

"I see" she heard Dumbledore say, his voice soft with understanding, and unbearable to hear.

Returning her gaze to Dumbledore she spoke in a flat, emotionless tone. "I realize I should have attended this morning and then met with Professor Babbling to discuss it. I do apologize, and…"

Dumbledore raised his hand. "Your apology is not necessary, Miss Granger. Consider yourself excused from Ancient Runes from now on."

Hermione nodded and focused intently on Dumbledore's wrinkly fingers.

"Now, I understand that something out of the ordinary occurred in Defense Against the Dark Arts today."

Hermione glanced sharply to her right, then back down towards the desk.

"Tell me what happened, please, Miss Granger."

Hermione couldn't bring herself to look up as she lied, "Nothing, sir."

"I don't recall the incident in precisely the same fashion," Professor Snape's voice drawled from the corner.

Hermione spun in her chair to face him. He sneered at her insubordinate body language.

"It was hardly an incident. Sir." Again, the compulsion to be insolent flared uncontrollably.

"Make juvenile refutations if you must, Miss Granger, but mind your tone," he threatened quietly.

Hermione closed her mouth and clenched her fists, trying very hard to reign in her temper. Unfortunately, Professor Snape seemed unsatisfied.

"If my memory serves," he continued, "you made a rather unimpressive attempt to hex an unarmed student during a class demonstration." Hermione's chin jutted forward in defiance as she swallowed an angry retort. The professor's lips formed an evil little grin. "What would possess you to do such a thing, I wonder – harm a wandless classmate? Mr. Malfoy was nearly an innocent victim of your adolescent fit of pique." His facetious confusion morphed into an angry hiss as he bit out the last words.

"INNOCENT VICTIM?" Hermione shot to her feet as she screamed. "How can you possibly call that evil bastard innocent? I wish a slow death on Draco and that fucking fiend he calls a father!"

Hermione stopped dead, and only just contained the impulse to comically slap both hands over her mouth.

Professor Snape arched a dark brow in victory. The nasty smile was back. "My my. Impressive alliteration."

Hermione paled and sunk into her seat quickly. "I'm so sorry," she moaned pathetically, her eyes closed and her head hung low. It was obvious to whom the apology was directed, for Dumbledore answered it quickly.

"Miss Granger, it should not shock you to learn that the walls of this hallowed office have heard worse in their time, and so have I." Hermione made a tiny strangled sound that was both a laugh and whimper of sheer humiliation.

"Your anger does not surprise me, given the events of the end of last year…and indeed of the many months preceding it. You have been living under a degree of stress that should never be imposed upon one so young."

"I'm alright," Hermione tried.

"No, Miss Granger. I don't believe that you are. And I can never express to you how much guilt I feel in saying what I am about to say, but I believe that your mental state makes you uniquely well suited to assist the Order at a critical moment. This is why you are here tonight." Hermione looked up at him, surprised and immensely grateful for the odd shift in topic. "This meeting was arranged for a single purpose: to ask you to help the Order by becoming a Death Eater."

Hermione was quiet for what felt like a very long time. Again, she glanced over her shoulder, but found that Professor Snape had retreated into the shadows.

"Harry's dream over the summer, the one which you no doubt recognized as a glimpse into his mental connection with the Dark Lord, revealed that the he intends to initiate Ginny Weasley into his ranks by force in a matter of months," Dumbledore provided, answering her unspoken question.

Hermione's face went slack for a moment as a bolt of adrenaline went through her body. The senselessness of this notion; the magnitude of the insult that was proposed to be added upon unspeakable injury; the, for lack of a better word, impropriety of such an act was almost too much to comprehend. To corrupt one of the three remaining child of the entire Weasley line, a child who had already been touched, perhaps more intimately than anyone else - save Harry - by Voldemort's evil. How could even _they_ propose such a thing? And more importantly, why?

Why. Hermione would spit on that idiotic word if she could. It was a word cried out by weaklings in the face of evil, and it never produced anything more than inane speculation, or worse, profoundly stupid rationale meant to calm and quiet the anguished. Her jaw clenched as her mind returned to the room.

"You did obliviate Harry," she stated, rather than asked.

"It was necessary for his safety and for ours." Dumbledore answered without preamble or apology.

Hermione nodded stiffly. "What must I do?"

"The only thing you must do, Miss Granger, is understand to what you would be committing yourself." The Headmaster's eyes took on a dull, weary look as he took a breath and prepared to continue. "None of what I am going to say will be a surprise to you, but I'm afraid I can't proceed unless I say it. If you agree to disguise yourself as Ginny and take her place, you will be entering a world of incredible danger. Violence and injury of both the mental and physical kind will certainly be inflicted upon you. Furthermore it is unlikely that you will escape the experience without being forced to inflict that same violence on others. And, as you know, it is entirely possible that you will be killed."

Hermione blinked twice, wondering briefly why no fear came to her at his words. "I may be killed in any case, Professor," she said calmly. "And as for injury," she subconsciously twitched her left shoulder - the point of origin from which the scars of Dolohov's curse blossomed across her chest, "I'm not innocent in that regard."

"No," Dumbledore answered with the saddest of smiles, "You are not."

"I want to help." She said it without any special inflection, but her determination and her courage were evident.

"I admire your bravery, Miss Granger." His voice was quiet and sad again. She nodded jerkily and looked away.

"Tomorrow evening at the same time you will meet with me here to discuss this further. Will the old library excuse suffice?"

Hermione smiled faintly as she nodded in the affirmative, her eyes wandering back to the beloved old Headmaster.

"Good. Now, I think it best you return to your dormitory. Good night, Miss Granger."

Hermione bade him goodnight and rose. She spared a glance toward the window, but found it too dark to see. Professor Snape never returned to the light.


	7. Knowledge

Note: The characters here represented are the property of JK Rowling. Absolutely no profits have been derived from this work, and no copyright infringement is intended.

21st September, 1996

It was 8:23 in the evening, silver trinkets were whirring and buzzing all around, and Hermione was trying very hard not to be sick. The mystery surrounding the gruesome death of Nymphadora Tonks had just been revealed - it was Severus Snape who had left her in a pool of her own blood.

The words had just left Professor Dumbledore's mouth, and now hung heavily in the air. Hermione closed her eyes and dropped her head. The memories of Professor Lupin's anguish overwhelming her.

"His reason?" she asked through clenched teeth, her chin still pressed to her chest.

"Professor Snape was present when Tonks' squad of aurors was ambushed last summer. He acted only after he had determined that it was impossible to save her. The aurors were outnumbered and surrounded, he never could have delivered her to safety without revealing his true allegiances. I don't need to tell you that, had he done so, both of them would have been lost."

Hermione was trying to process the information. "But, he cut her throat..." She uttered haltingly, still feeling ill.

"She was a metamorphmagus."

Hermione lifted her head and stared, her chest still heaving, wondering how this could possibly be meant as an explanation. When the headmaster failed to elaborate, Hermione began to think. After only a few moments the puzzle had come together.

"Her power to shape shift…" she began.

"…can be harnessed." Dumbledore provided.

"Professor Snape collected the last of her blood?" Hermione had to swallow hard after asking.

"Yes."

Fascination dawned on her face. "He used it to brew the Draught of Stolen Essence," she said breathlessly. She hated the small part of her that was excited by the notion. Did her insatiable intellect know no decency?

Dumbledore nodded gravely.

"How did he…know?" It wasn't precisely the question that Hermione wanted to ask, but the headmaster seemed to understand her meaning.

"Professor Snape was prepared for this contingency, as he always is and must be for countless others. And, by his timely action, he saw that her death was not meaningless."

Hermione wondered how someone could become so cold and disconnected; how any man could resort to logic and find opportunity in such a situation. How he managed to commit an act of aggravated violence against a known ally was not a question she was yet prepared to even ponder.

"The potion, Miss Granger - what do you know of it?"

Hermione swallowed and gathered her thoughts. "The Draught of Stolen Essence, when brewed with the last blood of a dying metamorphmagus gives the drinker some portion of his or her powers to shape shift," Hermione felt herself rapidly finding calm in the familiar act of recitation. "The potency of these stolen powers is determined by the skill of the brewer and the degree of training and natural ability of the drinker. Very few incidents of the transfer have been recorded, but ability has ranged in these cases from superficial power, changing hair or eye color for example, to almost complete shape-shifting ability."

Hermione, despite her endless efforts to be kind to her fellow classmates, was not afflicted with false modesty. And, though she never went so far as to praise him, neither was she ignorant of Professor Snape's tremendous power and skill. Therefore it was a quick and simple calculation to determine that should she drink such a potion, brewed by such a wizard, she would inherit powers of shape-shifting very near the genuine article.

Professor Dumbledore marveled at Hermione for a moment, not only for her seemingly faultless memory, but for all the careful preparations and ingenious magic she must have employed to gain access to the texts in which the potion could be found. 'Unauthorized access of the Restricted Section' didn't even begin to describe the infractions involved. In another universe he would be reprimanding her for putting herself at such risk, and wondering why a schoolgirl should bother with any magic darker than a love potion. But in this place and moment in history, he didn't even have the time, let alone the reasonable justification, for such a reproach.

"That is very good, Miss Granger" he said instead, "…very good."


	8. Potion, Dagger, Tears

Note: The characters here represented are the property of JK Rowling. Absolutely no profits have been derived from this work, and no copyright infringement is intended.

Hermione spent the remainder of that evening, and the entirety of the day that followed in a heavy lidded daze regularly punctuated by bolts of fear, horror, and excitement. Harry, as reliably oblivious as ever, took no note of her behavior, and as a result she'd had to apply virtually no effort to keeping the vow of secrecy that she swore to professor Dumbledore the night before. Not that it would have been particularly difficult in any case. Hermione no longer thought herself capable of revealing secrets – not the secrets that belonged to others, not any of her own.

She did, out of morbid curiosity, sometimes wonder what it would be like to tell Harry – to watch his face as she explained that the man and mentor that he loved so much had contrived to send her into the heart of evil; that she was to be the next sacrificial lamb. With a few well chosen words she could launch him on a misdirected, impulsive, ill conceived rampage of self hatred, adolescent rage, and profound guilt. With just a few words…

People, she was coming to realize as she watched the drama of this war unfold, were so unfailingly and profoundly stupid; so simple to manipulate and destroy. And Harry, the boy who would one day be called upon to stand as their savior, was perhaps the simplest pawn of all. For the first time in her life, Hermione looked at Harry and didn't see innocence, goodness, and love. There was only naiveté, temerity, and a boorish kind of courage.

The tenets of Gryffindor turned on the axis; or rather Hermione, turned on hers.

23rd September 1996

"Come" said the deep, familiar, voice. The sound of it sent a chill through Hermione and she was visited, yet again, by the horrifying image of a dying Tonks and her professor's bloody hands. Hermione took two deep breaths, spread her small fingers out over the door's iron surface, and pushed.

The potion's classroom was darker than she was accustomed to seeing it. The torches cast eerie shadows. Her professor sat at the mahogany desk that was once his own, and which he appeared to still regard as his rightful possession, with quill in hand; head bent. When she entered the small radius of flickering light, he looked up and watched her critically from beneath his furrowed brow. Rather than speak he sent his gaze towards the worktable nearest the front before returning it to the page on which he was scribbling.

She slid into the slightly wobbly bench and tried to concentrate on a jagged stone in the worn floor, or an unusual knot in the desk's surface, or the curled edge of the unfurling scroll at his right elbow. All of these things were innocuous, innocent, safe. These things were not his murderous hands.

With a final slashing flourish the professor lay his quill down carefully. He leaned away from the desk and straightened, his white hands disappearing behind it, and stared. His unnatural stillness was, as always, terribly unnerving. They sat in silence for a long moment, Hermione valiantly resisting the urge to speak or fidget. She raised her chin defiantly while under the table she dug her fingernails into her palms. This little pain always redirected her thoughts, calmed her, distracted her. It always helped.

"That is cheating, Miss Granger," he said suddenly.

Hermione was confused for a moment. He couldn't mean…

"And besides, you are on the verge of drawing blood."

Her eyes registered shock as she opened her fists, and slowly brought them to the surface, splaying her fingers against the wood. He smirked nastily.

_Fuck_.

"Do you really think you are capable of doing what the headmaster has asked of you?"

"I'm willing to do whatever is necessary for the Order, sir." She answered, willfully infusing her tone with calm.

He considered her for a moment without expression, then suddenly rose and disappeared into the darkness behind him. A moment's silence and Hermione felt a series of extraordinarily powerful wards unravel from the black distance as she heard his carrying voice again.

"You said you were willing." He glided to the table where she sat, and towered above her for a moment before carefully setting down a small phial before her.

"I asked if you were capable."

Hermione stared down at the phial. She knew instantly what it was. Like the magic that was used to create it, The Draught of Stolen Essence was itself both terrible and beautiful. The contents inside swirled like smoke. It was gold, then a deep purple, a rich navy, glittery black, shimmering emerald, bloody red; the colors bleeding into each other and emerging anew without interruption, as if they were alive. Despite the lack of light in the dungeon classroom, the beautiful hues reflected off the scarred surface of the table, glowing briefly as light does when filtered through stained glass, in a weak imitation of the brilliance emanating from within its confines. She felt the power of it pulse, and a tremor ran through her that was not purely fear.

Still staring at the beautiful potion Hermione swallowed hard and spoke. "You question my ability because of what happened to Tonks?"

"I do." The professor replied.

Hermione tore her eyes away and gazed up at him, unnerved by his unprecedented proximity. "What you did was ruthless…" Hermione began, but felt her breath disappear as her staunchly distant professor's face began to move close to her own. Only when his eyes were level with hers did he cease his approach.

"Ruthlessness is an integral part of the game which you intend to play." His voice was smooth and threatening at the same time. His black glare bore into her for a long, frightening moment before he quickly withdrew.

"I can do what's necessary," Hermione said, her head bent awkwardly back to look him in the face. The professor made a noise of derision and turned away from her.

"I can," she insisted to his retreating back. He paused and turned to face her once again, fixing her with a look of such profound disdain and ridicule that it transported Hermione through time and space. That look and Hermione Granger was a first year Potion's student again. A helpless child.

_Helplessness…Intolerable.  
_  
"Why do you look at me that way?" She demanded and stood suddenly.

"Because you are a stupid little girl, and you cannot even conceive of what you've promised," he snarled.

"I can!" she insisted. He sneered at her determination, enraging her. "You think I don't know anything of violence and loss. You have no idea."

The Defense Master's face became stony and closed as he said without inflection, "I have every idea."

"Then it's me you object to personally? You think I can't help, that I can't learn!"

"Six years," he scoffed. "And still the hand waving little know-it-all. Desperate to prove you intelligence, your worth, your belonging. A mistress of recitation; a master of nothing."

"I've changed," she shouted, hating that his words had wounded her.

"I see no difference."

A memory flashed before Hermione's eyes at that phrase and she very much wanted throw something. The ridiculous juxtaposition of her childhood with the facts of the current situation was infuriating. Clenching her teeth she looked down at her stupid schoolgirl skirt and cursed quietly.

Just when she felt that leaving the room in defeat was the only course of action she saw an answer to him in the Hogwarts issued gray wool: she was not the only one to wear a uniform here, and to enter this war wearing it.

"When was it that you took The Mark, professor? Sixteen? Seventeen?"

"I was seventeen." His quick and honest answer would shock her in retrospect.

"And when you turned on that promise, pledged yourself to become a spy, you were, what, twenty?"

He inclined his head infinitesimally, ignoring entirely the significance of her point.

"Am I so different?"

There was a pause and Hermione listened intently to the beating of her heart in her ears. Nothing could have prepared her for what would follow.

A barely noticeable motion and Professor Snape was holding something that glinted in the light in his left hand. The dagger wasn't especially large but it was long and thin with a serrated portion at the base where the blade met the black hilt. It looked light and dangerous, easily concealed.

"The serration makes the wound deadly." His voice startled Hermione out of her concentrated observation.

"You bury the blade to the hilt," he brought the dagger further into view "rotate it," his wrist whirled revealing his impeccably white cuff, "and drag away," he moved his arm lazily towards his body, as if truly pulling it from a sticky torso, and savoring the feeling.

"Magic might save you. But very few of us are capable of rational thought when our life is pouring out before our eyes. I am one such person. Nymphadora Tonks was not." He bore his imperfect teeth in a terrible parody of a smile.

Hermione's stomach turned. "How can you…" she began breathlessly.

"In her case I must admit the element of surprise was a factor. Aurors are highly trained to cope with even severe injury as you know." He stepped toward her. "Therefore a forward approach proved impossible," his face took on a look that mocked at reassurance as he extended his free hand to her. The gesture was oddly formal and aristocratic, as if he were asking to help her from a carriage. Knowing that this was all a terrible test Hermione forced herself to overcome the urge to flee, and placed her small hand in his long elegant fingers.

His grip was like a tight bracelet of ice and her breath caught with surprise. His black eyes became violent as he squeezed her painfully. She whimpered and turned away only to feel herself yanked and spun so hard and with such speed that she was dizzy when her back collided with his hard, wire thin frame. His hand left her wrist to grab a handful of her curly hair. He wrenched her head mercilessly to the side exposing her throat and with medical precision brought the blade up to rest against the pulsing vein he found there.

Her hands, grasping frantically at his grip, froze. Too petrified to move, she found herself paralyzed. She couldn't even scream.

"It was like this," he whispered in her ear, bending her head back further, forcing her eyes to meet his. "…Just like this."

"Once the cut was made," he pressed the flat of the blade against Hermione's throat causing her to gasp, "I merely held her and waited. It is only a matter of seconds, when done correctly." His tone changed from intentionally threatening to oddly inquisitive, almost innocent, as he asked, "Could you have done this monstrous thing?"

Hermione merely replied with a muffled cry. Her shaking knees buckled and the professor let her drop to the floor. Towering over her he hissed, "You think a vague willingness and a flimsy promise will carry you through the blood and gore do you?"

She made no reply.

"Childish fool" he spat.

She looked up and screamed back through her tears, "I'm NOT…"

"You are," he jeered softly, "a fool, and worse, a coward."

"Coward?" she said as he turned on her again. "COWARD!" she screamed. Hermione rose shakily to her feet and then flew forward, grabbing the untouchable professor by a black clad arm and yanking on him with all of her might. Instantly, he redirected her momentum and flung her into his desk. She let out a gasp when she felt the edge collide with her hips, and his surprisingly strong arms grip and twist her wrists and elbows behind her, forcing her chest down against the desk's surface. She began to struggle furiously.

"Listen to me!" He barked and gave her a hard jerk before continuing. She stifled a whimper.

"There are some wrongs so great, some pains so intolerable, that the craving for revenge cannot be suppressed, no matter the consequence," he murmured quickly, right into her ear. Still enraged she wrenched herself against him to no avail. He continued.

"Your fury is a great source of power if you have the strength to harness it." He paused and Hermione took this in, staring down at the dark wood of his desk, beginning to quiet. The logic of his almost whispered words was slowly penetrating her rage addled mind.

"You can have the vengeance" his teeth clenched around the word, "that you so desire, but only if you are willing to learn what must be learned and do what must be done in pursuit of its exaction." Hermione stilled. She watched a tear splash onto the shiny black surface of his desk.  
"The agony and the guilt that you feel will be easier to bear after the weight of your own self righteousness has been lifted. There is only one right, one goal, one truth, and it has nothing to do with your petty sense of morality or a convoluted notion of your place in this world." He was now speaking in his usual, deep, classroom drawl. The familiar tone and cadence was having, for the first time, a slightly calming effect.

"I have my reasons for what I have done and continue to do. You will learn to have your own."

Abruptly his agonizing grip was gone, but she remained hunched over the desk, breathing, thinking, crying silently. It was as if with his words Professor Snape had reached into the most fiercely guarded recesses of her heart and with his little dagger had slashed the walls open, freeing the deluge of hate tainted blood that was now coursing through her body, infusing every cell. He spoke directly to that ever burning fire of rage inside her; crackling to life with her each day, scalding her veins in the waking hours; glowing like a furnace within her every night, churning feverishly through her haunted dreams. And she had hidden it away from everyone even as it made her tremble without warning, or wake up thrashing in a cold sweat.

She thought no one had noticed.

So many others had lost people close to them in the course of this war and had not been overtaken with the kind of bloodlust that haunted Hermione now. Why did every molecule in her body scream for retribution?

According to this man, her professor, it really didn't matter. It simply was.

Hermione pushed her body up from the desk. Turning to face him, she slowly looked up into his impossibly white face. He met her gaze, but revealed nothing. She turned from him without a word, and walked stiffly towards the table at which she had sat moments earlier...and years before that. She grasped the small bottle carefully and twisted the cork delicately out of the thin neck.

Hermione knew as she tipped the contents back into her throat that this gesture was more than just a promise. She was indeed pledging herself to whatever came ahead; signing a contract to do what was necessary in pursuit of her goal. But she was also admitting to the truths in her professor's words. He would teach her how to 'do what must be done', and she would become whatever that education made of her.

The potion tasted like nothing; or rather it tasted like what she imagined actual, pure flame would taste like if one could ever experience such a thing. It tasted like clean potential, like pure power. The professor watched her eyes go suddenly wide, and her hand blindly return the empty phial to the table's surface.

Hermione swallowed and instantly felt the substance coursing through her, as if she had injected it directly into her veins. It circulated, sinking and melding into the natural fibers of her body. This was her first brush with Dark Magic from this side of the wand as it were, and its heady rush was overwhelming.

The only way to explain the sensations thrumming through her now would be to compare them to something like raw lust – an odd satisfaction and a nearly maddening craving at once. Her jaw slackened and her chest rose and fell in deep measured breaths as her eyes drifted shut. When they fluttered open again, Hermione saw in her professor's glittering gaze something that she could not identify. It was not admiration, affinity, approval or anything else so simple and melodramatic. If anything it was the absence of something familiar rather than the appearance of something new. Gone was derision, mockery, and contempt. Somewhere inside her she became aware that the dynamic had shifted irrevocably. The schoolgirl and her professor were no more.

OOOOO

Snape remained motionless as he watched Hermione leave. The moment the door clicked shut he moved swiftly to collect the empty phial, but paused, distracted by a strange gleam. Slowly he approached its source. Hermione's tears had pooled upon the heavy dark lacquer of his desk, and many long moments passed before he extended his white hand to wipe them away. Bringing his long fingers into view, he observed the candlelight glitter off the moisture, and then watched with great intensity as the salty evidence of her innocence slowly dried and disappeared.


	9. 2am

Note: The characters here represented are the property of JK Rowling. Absolutely no profits have been derived from this work, and no copyright infringement is intended.

Thursday, November 7, 1996

Nearly transparent lashes fluttered to obscure two warm brown irises and a cascade of ruby hair turned momentarily to flame in the golden gleam of firelight. Hermione carefully looked over the perfect organic mask and grinned prettily, then felt her heart jump in her chest to see Ginny's innocent smile in the mirror's reflection.

It had taken weeks of practice to achieve this illusion so thoroughly, and to become adept at executing the difficult transformation at a moment's notice. Weeks of making the repetitive motions that her daily routine required only to steal away every evening – retreating into an unused classroom, an abandoned corridor, a vacant office – to practice and curse and struggle. Hermione loved the giddy anticipation she always felt as she approached an obliging door, looked this way and that for observers, and then cautiously but swiftly slipped through, her pulse threatening to burst the seams of her heart.

Learning to metamorph was not difficult because it was unnatural. Spells of dark magic rarely were, despite what wizards of the light often said. It felt to Hermione like perfecting an inherent ability to an absurd degree, rather than learning an entirely new one. Born metamorphmagi learned to transform as they learned to walk and speak – slowly and clumsily, but with a natural approach born of instinct more than intellect, and developed by constant and exhaustive repetition rather than study or instruction. And thus she was able to practice alone – no teacher, no book; only her training in Transfiguration to guide her, and her famous tenacity to drive her forward. Hurling available objects across the room with every failure and laughing with true delight with each success, Hermione eventually succeeded in realizing the full potential that Snape's potion and her skill would ever permit.

She relaxed for a moment, allowing her features to return to normal, and then flexed her magic again, moving through the transformation twice more, partly to convince herself that her success was not a hallucination born of overwork, and partly out of almost hysterical elation. Incredibly satisfied, she banished the mirror she had conjured and checked her watch. Two in the morning – far too late to make use of the latitude afforded her by most professors if she were to be caught. The library had closed hours ago; there was no place for her to have plausibly been. Hermione rapped herself over the head, casting a Disillusionment charm, and exited the dusty classroom as silently as she was able.

The classroom door, stiff from lack of use, creaked with all the subtle delicacy of a garden rake on asphalt, or so it seemed in the eerie stillness of night in Hogwarts castle. Hermione pinched her lips and eyes shut tight as she pushed and escaped through the narrowest opening, leaving the door ajar behind her, and moved swiftly down the first of a long series of dark hallways that would lead her to the fickle staircases. Just as she was about to turn the first corner, the sound of footsteps rooted her feet to the spot and constricted her lungs. She stood for a moment in terrified silence, just long enough to judge from the pace and shuffle that it was Filch moving his fastest towards her. In her panic she did the only thing she could think to do – she slipped off her shoes, grabbed them into her arms, and ran as fast as she could down the hallway from whence she came, slamming the open classroom door shut as she passed it.

After several blind turns punctuated by short sprints Hermione felt safe enough to slow to a walk. The classroom she had just vacated had obviously once been used as some sort of potions annex, for it was full from top to bottom and wall to wall with cupboards and worktables – quite enough potential hiding places to keep Filch searching for a long while. As her heart rate returned to normal, Hermione took note of her surroundings. She was at the entrance of a corridor she had never seen or heard of before. From the light of the last remaining torch behind her she could see three chandeliers bereft of most of their candles, each increasingly obscured by darkness as they faded into the nothingness beyond. Hermione cast a modified Incendio, illuminating whatever candles remained with wicks intact, and thus bathed the hallway in the faintest light. It appeared no more inviting now than it had before, but there was no other option. Hermione took her first tentative steps and hoped that she wouldn't soon be discovering an inexplicable dead end – one of her least favorite features of the enchanted, nearly sentient, castle.

For several minutes the corridor simply stretched on, only the ribs of each vault, rendered from a veined bluish marble added any interest to the space. It was rare to find so much undecorated surface in the castle – no tapestries, no portraits – and the absence of these touches of humanity made her think that this place was very old, possibly one of the earlier built parts of the castle, long since abandoned and forgotten. Every few feet she recast to light another series of candles before her, and the gentle glow they produced allowed her the confidence to move forward, but maintained the sense of security that darkness provided.

Still in her stocking feet, Hermione suddenly became aware of the cold. Smiling a little at the silly picture she would have presented if observed – standing barefoot in a corridor in her school uniform – she stooped to pull her shoes back on. Finishing the laces on her left oxford she moved to the right, and just as she wrapped one lace around the loop of the other, Hermione noticed a flicker of light in the distance…and her hand stilled. Her laces forgotten, she stood.

It was dim, the same quality of dim in which she stood – the dim of sporadic candles in low chandeliers. She watched, looking for the outline of a figure but finding none. It seemed for a split second that the light had been growing, moving towards her, but now it simply existed – neither approaching nor retreating, some fifty yards ahead. A crazed notion to call out seized her, but she resisted, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood. She took several steps back, her eyes enormous, her lips parted and nearly trembling. Every sense she possessed was suddenly sharpened to an animal precision and for a moment she thought she felt the air stir before her. Just as she was about to turn and flee, running towards whatever paltry punishment Filch might offer, a figure burst forth from the darkness, a powerful hand seized the back of her neck, and another flew to her mouth, silencing a scream.

Professor Snape's eyes were wide and fierce as they bore into hers and the glint of a dozen candles danced in the ample space that should have been iris, but seemed an extension of pupil. His lank hair fell forward, the tips of it touching the curls framing her face. His robes swirled around her, swiping the backs of her calves as they swung forward and then dragged back, coming to rest like faithful black hounds at his heels. She didn't struggle – the desire to do so was overwhelming but not because she felt the need to escape him. Her mind had adjusted to the shock, but her body was still coursing with adrenaline and the desire for flight. He seemed to recognize this, and waited five long seconds before he released her, taking a large step back. She stumbled a bit as he let go, her knees feeling wobbly, but had the presence of mind to crane her neck up to face him and whisper "Filch" indicating the hallway behind her with the wave of her shaking hand. His gaze traveled lazily away from her face and over her shoulder. Pulling his wand from his sleeve he silently extinguished the trail of light she'd left behind, thrusting them into total darkness.

Snape turned from her, and wordlessly began a brisk progression towards his own little lights. She followed behind, half jogging to keep up, and periodically cast extinguishing spells as they moved.

Some two hundred yards ahead, the corridor terminated as suddenly as it had begun. After another few twists and turns, familiar surroundings started to show themselves. Just as they approached the junction where Hermione should break away to the left, following a short distance to the first of many staircases leading to Gryffindor tower, Snape stopped, opened a large oak door to their right and stood aside, waiting for her to enter. Hermione crossed the threshold and moved to the far end of the room, bending wordlessly to tie her right shoe.

"Your excuse," Snape prompted.

Hermione smiled down at her laces as she finished the knot. She rose slowly, and by the time her shoulders were straight, the hair that danced around them did so in thick, straight, shiny sheets of the deepest maroon.

Snape gave no outward indication of surprise save a barely perceivable tightening around the eyes. He took two long strides towards her and then began a wide but leisurely circle around to her left.

She didn't follow him with her gaze. He was looking her over, examining her from every angle for errors, and she let him complete his slow appraisal unhindered. Returning to his position some ten feet in front of her he finally spoke.

"Tomorrow, seven. You have detention."

Hermione dropped her guise, pulled a face of incredulity and opened her mouth to argue. Snape closed his eyes for a moment as if pleading with some external force for strength and patience in the face of idiocy. Hermione closed her mouth with a snap. She _was_ an idiot, she thought.

Detention wasn't detention. It was training.


	10. Legilimens

Note: The characters here represented are the property of JK Rowling. Absolutely no profits have been derived from this work, and no copyright infringement is intended.

Friday, November 8, 1996

Hermione arrived at the Defense classroom door at precisely 6:58. The halls beyond were buzzing with the sounds of Hogwarts – footsteps and the turning of pages, the scribble of quills and the casting of charms, whispery snickers and shouts of laughter, the deafening silence of brooding, soft hums and sighs.

She added the creak of the door to the cacophony, and punctuated it with a click of the latch behind her, shutting out the din.

An icy rain pounded the world outside, and sheets of it sobbed down the length of the ancient glass paned windows – bordered in thick, simply rendered stone – that covered almost the entirety of the western wall in an even row of twelve. Hermione stood before them, watching the thick rivulets as they descended, distorting and obscuring the courtyard beyond.

The feeling of a strong ward being erected around the classroom door woke her from her silent thoughts, and she turned to discover Snape standing at the top of the short staircase leading to the Defense professor's office and quarters beyond. He dropped his wand to his side, and beckoned her come with a flick of his fingers.

Hermione had never had occasion to visit this office, and was filled with her characteristic curiosity as she ascended the thirteen steps leading to it. The professors that had held the post through the years had been, with the notable exception of Lupin, such a parade of lunatics and fools that remaining for any unnecessary length of time in the classroom, much less venturing into the corresponding office of any one of them had been, on her list of day to day priorities, extremely low.

The style of the room was distinctly high middle ages. Thick, plain, Romanesque pillars occurred at strategic points around the circular space, uplifting a domed roof from which an inelegant iron chandelier was suspended. It put her in mind of the Crusades. The oppressive heaviness of the stone seemed to reflect the kind of deranged pragmatism that fueled such campaigns, and a chill ran through her at the sudden but apt historical parallel.

The room had sat unused for quite some time by the look of it. Snape, of course, had kept his office and rooms in the dungeons while Professor Slughorn had requested and been granted his former rooms below the hospital wing. Thus, this space had become suddenly surplus to requirement, and the house elves had clearly forsaken it's upkeep for the more pressing tasks of the day. Cobwebs had overtaken the chandelier, and the plans of several large arachnids must have been deeply frustrated by the sudden appearance of flame amid their small city. Dust coated the empty desk dominating the deepest part of the room, and the hearth of the massive fireplace was badly in need of sweeping.

Snape pointed to one of two simple wooden chairs, arranged facing one another before the roaring fireplace, indicating to her to sit. She did so as he warded the office door, and waited.

"How capable an Occlumens are you?" he asked without preamble, taking his seat across from her.

"I…what?" she stuttered, a look of surprise on her face.

His eyes flicked upwards in annoyance. "You have been practicing the art since it was introduced to Potter last year as you have always done, with all forms of magic, whenever and however they have been brought to your attention. So, I ask you again, how capable?"

Another Hermione would have been bashful at this direct reference to her insatiable intellectual appetite. This Hermione merely huffed a sigh of annoyance before answering.

"I have performed the spell successfully, but I haven't…"

"…met with any challenge of consequence," Snape interrupted.

It was true. Harry and Ron had been dismal adversaries. She didn't argue.

"Then prepare yourself now," Snape said, pointing his wand between her eyes.

"Shouldn't I stand?" she asked, successfully masking the intense feeling of anxiety that washed over her at the notion of having her thoughts perused by him.

"Not unless you wish to crack your skull on the stone when you faint," he replied quietly, and then uttered in a voice just as soft, "Legilimens."

Hermione managed to clap defenses on her most fiercely guarded secrets as soon as she heard the spell. It was akin to castling in chess – a standard defensive move and a good one. But castling was no guarantee of victory, and it wasn't long before the strain of that protection, coupled with the dizzyingly dexterous fluidity of his invasion, had her gripping the chair for purchase in a room that felt like a centrifuge, blending the rich colors of her thoughts and memories into a brownish gray soup.

She leaned forward and panted for ten long seconds, then looked up again to meet his eye.

"Again," he stated.

"Yes," she replied.

"Legilimens."

OOOOOOO

Four long hours passed, during which he invaded her mind more than two dozen times. Some attempts at resistance were abysmal, most were impressive for a witch her age and experience, and two – only two – were worthy of the closest you could get to high praise from Severus Snape: "Better."

"That's enough for tonight," he said finally, rising. "You will be unsteady on your feet…"

She stood before he'd finished, and instantly felt her knees begin to give way.

Snape grabbed her by her upper arms and roughly sat her down again.

"As I was saying," he began, annoyed, "you will be unsteady on your feet for several hours. Drink this," he presented her with a potion in a small brown bottle – enough to contain maybe two thimbles full of liquid. "It will steady you for long enough to get to your dormitory. But when it wears off, you'll stumble like a drunkard."

She took it and drank, offering him the empty bottle. The room ceased its movement almost instantly and she stood, this time much more cautiously, finding to her relief that she felt quite normal.

"We meet again tomorrow," he said, watching her carefully.

She nodded. "Good evening, professor."

OOOOOOO

"How's she faring?" Dumbledore asked, handing Severus a cup of tea.

"Very well," he replied, silently appreciating the warmth of the china against his palm. "She's more capable than I had hoped. I predict she'll be sufficiently prepared before the winter holidays."

"Good."

They sat in silence for a moment.

"And how go the meetings of late?" Dumbledore asked, more gently.

Snape sat motionless for a moment, his face frozen in unnatural neutrality.

"The Dark Lord makes his displeasure known to me," he provided, gazing into the distance over the headmaster's left shoulder.

Dumbledore paused, in a way, out of respect. "Is it escalating?"

"No. I don't believe he intends to dispatch me until he feels that I am truly of no use to him. As long as our strategic position remains relatively unchanged, I believe myself to be safe from death at his hands."

_Safe from death at his hands, _Dumbledore thought…such specifics.

"And when you bring her to him – do you think she'll become aware of his intentions towards you?"

"I don't know," Snape replied, his face darkening. "If she asks, I'll explain. Perhaps by then she'll be prepared for the responsibility."

"I hope that doesn't become necessary," replied Dumbledore. "Keeping Miss Weasley safe is a much…" he struggled to find the right word.

"Purer," provided Severus, wearing just a ghost of a most jaded grin. "It is a much purer cause."

"Yes," Dumbledore agreed after a moment's silence. "Or at least it is less overwhelming."

Severus suddenly went rigid.

"I must go," he said, awkwardly switching his tea from a stiffening left appendage to his right hand and placing it on the desk.

Dumbledore nodded and watched him leave, trepidation etched in every line of his ancient face.

OOOOO

Hours later, around three in the morning, Hermione woke with a cry from a fever-dream sleep.

One man had been screaming, and another had laughed, while a massive serpent coiled and uncoiled restlessly nearby.


	11. Finally, Snow

Note: The characters here represented are the property of JK Rowling. Absolutely no profits have been derived from this work, and no copyright infringement is intended.

November 17th, 1996

Winter's first snow came late for Scotland. An incessant freezing drizzle had cast the world in a mournful gray for weeks when, quite suddenly, around ten in the morning, one or two unremarkable droplets blossomed into beautiful crystals somewhere in the atmosphere, and drifted down to earth, landing in Hermione's hair. She smiled in spite of herself, and stretched out a hand to catch those that followed, watching them melt into dots of water on her skin.

The back stoop of Hagrid's hut would have had her aching with cold had the stone not taken so well to the warming charm she'd cast on it. The stairs were built for Hagrid of course, and so large that Hermione's knees bent at a near ninety degrees to the ground, while the front face of the next step behind her supported most of her short torso. She leaned into the warmth of it, and felt for a moment like a queen on a crudely rendered throne in some distant, early kingdom. She savored the soft, tinkling rustle of falling snow. Hidden safely from view of the castle and all within, she closed her eyes for a moment and forgot who she was.

A distant rumbling echoed through the stillness, until finally Hagrid emerged from the Forbidden Forest hauling a cart the size of a dumpster piled high with freshly chopped firewood. Steam rose off his great shaggy head and massive shoulders, and thick, sodden snowflakes refused to adhere to him. Fang followed close, stopping to sniff at curiosities until he caught Hermione's scent and wagged his clumsy tail in recognition.

Hermione marveled at the sight of Hagrid. The simple fact of him still had the power to amaze her sometimes, even after all these years. He was as magical to her as any brilliant charm or elegant potion, but he had a quality about him that was, for lack of a different word, muggle. He felt like home – like being rocked to sleep in an imperfect cradle, like the acrid smell of matches, like the scratch of wool mittens and the slightly searing joy of a hot water bottle. These comforting discomforts were forgotten, or perhaps never known to wizarding folk. Families like the Malfoys were, she could tell just by looking, so divorced from the little insignificant struggles - the inexact bumbling of human life - that they almost ceased to be real. They were cold marble to Hermione's wet earth, and she pitied Draco sometimes as much as she hated him for that cheerless, sterile quality.

"'Ermione," Hagrid called when he noticed her, puffing a bit as he made his way up the final incline.

She smiled a genuine smile and the feeling was unfamiliar, as if the muscles involved had atrophied.

"'Arry with you?" he asked, coming to a halt and throwing off the makeshift wooden yoke he'd fashioned himself for the task.

"He'll be down soon I think," she replied, and stood to lift the first of two heavy stones on the ground near her feet, using magic to brace it against one enormous wheel. Hagrid glanced at her, a look of surprise appearing over his kind face before he could attempt to mask it. He bent quickly to lift the other stone as if it were a pebble, and wedged it into place with simple force. Hermione brushed her hands on her wool coat, and followed Hagrid back to the hut's entrance, eager for him to bring the still smoldering coals in the hearth back to a cheerful roar.

Hagrid busied himself with fire and tea while Hermione made herself comfortable in one of his huge chairs, pulling her favorite blanket from the armrest where it had been roughly folded and shaking it out. It was made of some sort of woven animal hair – a dark charcoal gray color with hints of shiny purple interspersed throughout; rough to look at but luxuriously soft to the touch. She realized that she had never asked what kind of fantastic beast it had come from. Still staring down at the material she opened her mouth to speak, but then closed it again, rubbing it between her fingers.

Perhaps a question unasked could be proof of a future in which to hear the answer.

The fire tended and the kettle set to boil on the iron hook above the open hearth, Hagrid dropped with a sigh into his leather and yew chair, and together they sat in peaceful silence, watching the fire.

He had become the only person with whom Hermione could quietly exist. She visited him infrequently, said almost nothing, and never explained; and in return he did her the incredible honor of allowing her the peace and quiet and comfort of his silent company, as if he knew it's all she needed. He'd sit with her and mend torn clothing, or repair broken tools, or sort seeds for planting in his garden while Hermione stared into the flames.

Sunday mornings had always been the time to come visit Hagrid. The four of them had never discussed the tradition; they had never planned a visit. It had simply evolved organically the way all things do between friends who are really family. Saturday was for getting in trouble, Sunday evening was for homework they should have done already, and right now was for Hagrid.

Hermione had spent every Sunday that term watching from her tower window for the figure of Harry wandering up to the castle through sunshine, mist, or rain. Most days she'd simply return to bed, draw the curtains and lie still for hours. Other days she'd rush out of the tower and down the wrong staircase, missing Harry on her roundabout route, and steal away to see Hagrid alone. To his very great credit, and to her relief, Hagrid had never told Harry, and had never asked her why.

Either he already knew the answer, or he understood that it would not be forthcoming. In either case, he loved and understood Harry and Hermione both, more than she had ever before realized, and she would be grateful to him – for his discretion and silence and company – for the rest of her life.

Hermione glanced at her watch; 10:27am.

_Harry, _her message had read. _I'll be at Hagrid's this morning. _And she'd signed it simply –_Hermione_.

Harry had to have noticed the neatly written missive tapping and fluttering gently against his window by now. Though it had been months since she'd sent him such a message, she was sure he still recognized the sound of it, even in sleep.

Hermione smiled sadly at the memory. It had taken the boys a full six months their second year to master the charm. She had woken on many mornings to find the most appalling efforts slamming themselves repeatedly into her window, looking more like the furiously discarded pages of a frustrated writer's first draft than a letter charmed to look and behave like a folded paper sparrow.

They'd traded hundreds of those messages over the years – each of them leaning out of their respective windows and, with hopeful expressions, releasing their little birds into the wind to fly around the circumference of the tower and into the window on the other side. _What were so many of those little notes about?_ she thought to herself, almost but not quite laughing. They'd been heatedly scribbled conspiracy theories and plans, ridiculous jokes and hilariously obscene illustrations, silly riddles and games of hangman, class work questions and frivolous gossip. She still had a box of them at her parent's house, and she would never throw it away.

"There 'e is," Hagrid said suddenly, spotting Harry deftly negotiating the rocky path far in the distance.

Hermione drew a deep breath, and stood to gather mugs, tea, pot, and rock cakes to the sturdy square table in the center of the room.

She wasn't exactly sure why she'd chosen to come early on this Sunday of all those that had come before, and all that would follow after. She'd simply woken and decided. It could have been because of what was looming in her fast approaching future; it could have been because she was tired of avoiding her friend; it could have been because she missed him.

A knock at the door, a creak of hinges, the sound of hair being ruffled by a hand the size of a trashcan lid, the scrape of chair-legs, the pouring of tea, and then they were all sitting together, just like old times but for the vacant chair in the corner.

Harry looked at Hermione with haunted eyes. She tried to look back at him with the cold disconnection that had grown so familiar; to regard him as if he were a stranger to her. She had allowed him glimpses of her, fleeting moments of her company, the occasional sound of her voice, but she had kept her friendship from him; her self; her soul.

Today of all days, for the first time in months, for whatever reason, she let him have them again; and the moment he recognized it, he cried.

Great choking sobs that wracked his smallish frame. Hagrid laid a hand on his shoulders as he pulled his round glasses from his reddening face and set them on the table with a shaking hand. Hermione rubbed away a single tear that may not have ever fallen, and stared into the fire again, waiting for him to quiet.

OOOOOO

It is a fact of the human condition that emotional release almost always comes paired with meaningless chatter. Hermione couldn't remember who it was who had spoken first, or even what they had discussed in particular, but hours passed, and when she made her way back to the castle at dusk, she was comforted by the presence of Harry by her side.

It wasn't her intention, and she couldn't have known it would be the result, but a weight had been lifted from both of them. The rage hadn't lessened, the desire for revenge hadn't gone, but her guilt for hating Harry every day since that night had suddenly left her, and as a result her fury felt cleaner to her, somehow more righteous. It no longer drained her; it gave her strength.

Harry and Hermione turned toward the Great Hall, both suddenly ravenous beyond belief. She'd have to invent an excuse to separate from him after dinner; doing so while being kind to him was no longer second nature.

She would think of something, and Snape would be waiting at the stroke of seven.


	12. Necessary Evil

Note: The characters here represented are the property of JK Rowling. Absolutely no profits have been derived from this work, and no copyright infringement is intended.

December 8, 1996

_The burrow glows in the distance. _

_A hand sewn quilt – stars in a blue black sky and a happy, fat moon – bears the warmed imprint of a napping cat. _

_Shoes piled just inside the kitchen door; it creaks. _

_The last of nine golden hands comes to rest…. 'home'. _

_The smell of nutmeg._

_The pattern of Mum's apron; the green satin lining of Dad's hat. _

_A bolt of pain; a thrill of terror; and then numbness thuds to the floor softly solid, like a heavy velvet curtain._

_Distant shrieks – basilisk and phoenix and boy – warp and flicker….low and slow and muffled – in reverse, underwater; then shrill – ripping raw like fabric. _

_The sticky coldness of wet rock, the weight of stones above, the awareness of blood and venom. _

_Tom Riddle. _

_His smile is the edge of madness, and of nirvana. _

_The eyes go wide. The face is shocked. The fang is poised. The page is prone. _

_And then Harry stabs it, and it is also him, and he is also her, and she is also it; _

_and they are all screaming. _

Ginny's eyes rolled back in her head and the shriek died on her lips. Hermione lunged forward and caught her shoulders, then steadily rolled her back against the couch that the Room of Requirement had provided them.

Hermione slid into the space next to her and brushed Ginny's hair out of her lashes, still fluttering in the nightmare. She then settled herself against the opposite end, and waited.

Hermione wondered what the reaction might be this time. Would she be furious? Delirious? Stricken? Betrayed? She hoped not that last, but only because it was the one she most deserved. Guilt prickled and she swatted it away like a gnat. _Wake_ she commanded silently. _Wake and look me in the eye once more, like the trusting fool you've always been, and always will be._

_(...I hope) _

After several minutes Ginny stirred. Hermione braced herself.

"Hermione," she whispered, bending forward. "What did you do?"

"I'm sorry," Hermione lied. "I didn't want you to suffer." It was the truth.

"Why did you do it?" Ginny asked into her lap, beginning to shake and to cry. Hermione fingered her wand behind the couch, out of view.

"I had to."

Ginny sat up straight, and turned her tear streaked face towards her oldest friend.

"What do you…."

"Obliviate."

Ginny's eyes went wide and blank. A fluffy white cloth appeared on a small table beside a pitcher of cool water infused with aloe. Hermione wetted the material and gently took Ginny's face in her hands, wiping away the tears.

"We've studied for hours haven't we?" Hermione asked her; her voice soft and kind – maternal.

"Mm," replied Ginny, dreamily.

"And you got a headache like you always do when you work too hard."

Ginny sighed and blinked slowly. Hermione immersed the cloth completely and rung it out.

"Lean back for me now, Ginny."

Ginny did so obediently; as malleable as a sleepy child. Hermione draped the wet cloth over Ginny's eyes and reached for a newly appeared blanket. She unfolded it and placed it over her friend carefully, stopping to squeeze Ginny's feet gently.

"You're just resting your eyes, until you feel like you can work again."

"Yes," mumbled Ginny, already asleep.

Hermione moved to the armchair nearby, arranged books and papers in a convincing pattern of disarray, then settled herself comfortably in the scene of the crime, and waited for dawn.

OOOOOO

Ginny woke at sunrise. The room had sprouted an impossibly tall, stained glass cathedral window just as the lazy winter sun began to creep over the mountains in the distance beyond the lake, flooding the room with the harsh light of a cold and cloudless December morning.

Hermione caught moments of sleep throughout the night, but had been far too agitated to drift fully into unconsciousness. She had obtained the final piece of the puzzle – the memory that Ginny had never offered her before, and that she needed more than any other – the images of Tom Riddle's possession of her.

Hermione had become an excellent Occlumens in her weeks of practice. Snape had been steadily more and more violent in his intrusions, and she had kept pace with him – her defenses growing not only stronger, but more cunning; her lies ever more authentic. But the task of building a repertoire, as it were, of Ginny's thoughts and memories had been far more tedious.

Her skill in Legilimency had remained in the absence of relentless exercise, intermediate at best. She could perform the spell, enter her victim's mind, and interpret what she found, but she lacked the mental agility of an accomplished Legilimens. And thus, Hermione simply rode the waves of Ginny's thoughts, hoping that she would drift ashore of something useful. She'd seen memories of home, moments from childhood, bolts of adolescent passion – all important. But visions of Tom Riddle, never; until now. And the instant she achieved this knowledge, after the thrill of victory had dissipated, she was filled with a profound dread.

The first chapter of her journey had come to a close, and, she realized with a lurch of terror, she was now a significant step closer to the Dark Lord, the Dark Mark, and possibly to failure and death. Snape's first lesson would this very day come to a close, and she did not know what came next.

Ginny sat up suddenly, startled by her unfamiliar surroundings, and looked to Hermione feigning sleep convincingly in the red leather armchair, her feet propped up on the table between them.

"Shit," she said.

"Mmmf," answered Hermione.

Ginny laughed then, and stood to gather their books and papers.

"I can't believe we did this again," she muttered, almost to herself.

"Oh god. Have we?" asked Hermione, her eyes sleepy.

The two girls made their way back to the tower, brushing off the disapproving tuts of the Fat Lady as they entered the common room, and made quick progress up the stairs to the dormitory. Ginny kicked off her shoes fluidly as she flung her curtains aside and flopped comically onto her comfortable bed, falling asleep in seconds.

It was one of the more enviable Weasely traits – thought Hermione, moving instead towards the showers – to fall asleep with such ridiculous ease; useful in so many cases, but not today. As much as Hermione would have liked, (and in all probably very much needed) to crawl into bed for eight hours of uninterrupted sleep, it had been Snape's instruction to her that the moment she came across the possession memory, she should come to him. She sighed, adjusted the temperature, shed her robes, and stepped into the hot stream.

Thirty minutes later Hermione arrived at the door to the potions classroom. The Disillusionment charm she'd used proved almost entirely unnecessary – no one save a few studious Ravenclaws were stirring before 10 am on a frozen Sunday morning the second to last weekend before finals. She rapped three times on the door, the sound echoing down the empty corridor, and then entered.

Hermione felt a film like silk pass over her face and hair and down her back – a ward to alert Snape that someone had entered. She stood in the deserted classroom and listened to water drip softly from some unknown source onto some unidentifiable surface. She didn't mind the dark and cold of the dungeons, but she did dislike the dampness. Shivering slightly, she ignited the torches, as if the appearance of light might equal the feeling of warmth.

A sound from the office beyond told her that Snape was in, and a moment later he emerged, throwing the door open to glare at whoever disturbed him on a Sunday morning.

"I got it," she said in response to his inquiring brow. "The memory, I got it."

"Ward the door," he said, and stepped back through the iron-clad portal from which he had partially emerged.

Hermione obeyed, and then quickly followed in his wake.

The potions office had changed somewhat since Professor Slughorn resumed the post, and though she had spent at least six of the term's N.E.W.T. level potions classes in this room – observing a particularly delicate potion, procuring an especially exotic and dear ingredient, borrowing one of the rarer potions reference books kept there – Hermione had never taken the time to study the subtle differences. With Snape occupied somewhere in the distance of the opposite end of the room, she allowed herself a brief appraisal.

The ingredients lining the South and East walls were arranged differently from what she recalled rather vividly of her terrifying second year break-in. Snape's collection had grown steadily since then, and Slughorn, it appeared, had employed a very different style of organizing it. From what she could glean by looking quickly, ingredients had been reorganized by their common names, and in sub groupings according to common use. Snape's arrangement had been by the Latin, and divided by biological taxonomy.

The tool collection along the Eastern wall had also been altered. Hermione remembered having been pleased by the logic of the previous layout – a neat cross referencing of volatile and contradicting ingredients with method of preparation (i.e. scraping, mincing, crushing, etc.) Slughorn, by contrast, had simply arranged the majority of the tools by size, separating those used with dangerous substances from the rest entirely. It was safer, perhaps, but less elegant.

Of the four square worktables dominating the largest part of the long rectangular space, two were laden with a total of seven, no, eight steaming cauldrons. Six of these, with their intense eucalyptus bite and assertively piping steam, were undoubtedly Pepperup Potion – in high demand this time of year – but the remaining two she couldn't identify. She did her best to peer over the lips of the small, golden cauldrons, and tried to breathe in their scents deeply as she passed. But the odorless and tranquil black pools gave no clue as to their ingredients or purpose.

The work was all Snape's. She could tell by the rigidity evident in every detail from the even spacing of the cauldrons to the aggressively neat arrangement of their next ingredients – in tight and uniform slices, minced piles, and powders, already in their measuring vessels, each lined up to the right of their respective fires; no exceptions.

Hermione looked to her left as the second row of worktables, bereft of cauldrons, came into view, and skimmed as best she could the small potions library located against the west wall. Here at least, there appeared to be no change whatsoever, and that gave her an odd sense of satisfaction.

The muted tinkling sound of tiny glass bottles brought her hurrying forward to the round table located before the room's only window. The portal had been carved into the solid rock of the steepest part of the castle wall, overlooking the lake, and was formed by more than one hundred hand poured circular panes; each unique, and imperfect. Hermione stood before it, unsure of whether to sit or stand, and surveyed Snape as he rummaged through a tall, thin cabinet, pushed flush against the window's wall.

Having never before seen him without them, Hermione would have guessed that, bereft of the imposing volume of his teaching robes, Snape would have been rendered slightly less frightening. The reality, she observed as she watched him extract one bottle, and then two more, was quite different.

In his frock coat and cuffs – fashioned, like so much of the clothing of the wizarding world, in a Victorian spirit, complete with oppressively high collar and draconian buttons – he seemed lighter; quicker. His angular shoulders appeared sharper, his spidery limbs longer, his height more pronounced, without the dispersing and softening effect of layers upon layers of flowing fabric. Seen in this slightly less formal, less guarded way, he struck her as not just magically dangerous, but physically menacing as well. She remembered the dagger suddenly, and found herself taking her seat in one of the mahogany chairs after all.

Snape shut the cabinet doors softly and approached the round table, handing her one vial and pocketing the other two.

"What's this?" she asked, her nerves having taken control of her tongue, and overridden her ability to hold it.

"You're no use to me exhausted," he said by way of explanation.

She understood and drank, then handed him the empty vessel. He replaced the cork, and set it on the table between them.

Hermione felt the Invigoration Draught beginning to take effect in stages. Her face flushed and her lips tingled. Her pulse quickened, creating a sudden demand on her lungs to keep up; forcing her to take several deep breaths. Snape stood before her, his wand in hand, waiting patiently, and seemed to know the exact moment when the effects would peak and plateau.

"Stand," he commanded, when that moment came, and Hermione did.

She was prepared for him to cast Legilimens, she was even prepared for him to do so while she stood, having practiced this twice before.

She was not prepared for him to lunge forward, grip her by the back of her neck, his thumb wrapping possessively around her jaw, and cast the spell into her startled face.

The last detail of the earthly world of which she was aware was the feeling of his wool frock coat curled tightly in her fingers.


	13. Here Endeth the Lesson

Note: The characters here represented are the property of JK Rowling. Absolutely no profits have been derived from this work, and no copyright infringement is intended.

Ginny's screams rang out in Hermione's mind, the contradictory emotions of the memory flat-lining in the final crescendo to a steady, piercing agony. And yet still, Snape remained. She dwelled in that horrible underground chamber, and gave him phoenix song and basilisk scales, and still he remained.

Had she not drunk the Invigoration Draught, she would long ago have fainted. Cloudy splotches of black burst before her eyes, with each second growing larger and more enduring, and still, Snape remained.

Hermione felt her legs going slack, and the increasing weight of her body began to put painful strain on her throat. Only when she was very nearly hanging by the neck in Snape's unyielding grip did she slowly, slowly, slowly begin to sink – in mind and body – until the freezing stone of the dungeon floor caressed her knees and then her thighs as her skirt rumpled inelegantly about her. Her hands went limp, and the foreign wool between her fingers slipped away.

Snape's serenely threatening countenance flickered before her eyes only for a moment, before blackness reigned completely. As the last pinch of muscular tension in her body softened, two strong hands guided her arms and shoulders and head to the floor, in a practiced dance of rapid catch and gentle release.

OOOOO

Round. Cold. Hard, but somehow also soft.

Leather, Hermione realized, opening her eyes. Dull jet black, well used but not worn, and obscured to the instep by a black trouser leg fastened closely with a half dozen buttons.

Hermione withdrew her hand from the surface of Snape's left boot where it had come to rest, and instead applied it to the to the floor with careful pressure, slowly raising her body to a semi sitting position. She looked up, expecting him to glare at the unwanted contact, but found his gaze instead directed straight ahead to the wall behind her.

She remained crumpled at his feet for several seconds longer, willing the room to keep still around her. Gingerly Hermione pushed herself to her knees, and then to standing. Again she lifted her eyes to Snape's, and again he took no notice, seemingly lost somewhere in the ancient stones across the room.

"Sir," she said at last, perplexed.

At the sound of the softly uttered syllable, the trance-like nothingness of his expression was suddenly punctuated by a flicker of distaste. This gave way to a grim determination, and finally, with a sudden drop of his eyes to hers, to a terribly fearsome glower.

Hermione's stomach clenched. It was as if the room had suddenly grown colder; the change so remarkable she took a step away from him without thinking.

He matched her movement, maintaining the short distance between them. Still she backed away from him, and still he approached, until she felt the wall which had so engrossed him come into unexpected contact with her back.

"What…" she began to ask, bringing her arms up before her in a purely instinctive gesture of defense.

In a movement of astounding grace and speed, his right hand darted to his left cuff, drawing a familiar blade from the black sleeve and in the same fluid motion swung it upwards and towards her, slashing her left arm from crook to wrist.

Hermione gasped and clutched her forearm, staring stunned at the river of blood that burst forth from it, rushing up through the space between her fingers, running freely off the end of her elbow, and spattering on the floor.

"What have you done?" she yelled.

He gave no answer. Hermione turned to run from the room, but Snape thrust his arm forward, spreading his long fingers against the wall, blocking her way.

"Help me!" she cried, backing instead into the corner he'd allowed her; looking frantically around the room for something with which to staunch the bleeding.

"Help you," he said flatly, replacing the dagger in his sleeve.

"Yes!" she screamed, trying to press her fingers into the source of the bleeding, but finding the wound too long and deep to cover, and the stinging ache of it sickening. Seeing no other option, she ran towards him, determined to escape. His hand darted out as she passed, snatching a handful of her robes.

"Let me go!" she shrieked and swung her fist at him. Snape caught her flying hand easily and turned her towards him, grabbing the other, slick and red. He held her there, staring her in the face while her blood ran down his wrist, under and over his sleeve, ruining his perfectly white cuff.

She struggled and began to cry in earnest.

"Please help me," she said, tears streaming down her face.

"Help," he said deliberately, "yourself." And with that, he shoved her from him.

Hermione stumbled back, gripping anew her throbbing arm, and panted from pain and panic. Her hands shaking, she withdrew her wand and pointed it at the gash.

Hermione had always been abysmal at healing charms. Abysmal was too strong a word, but was by her standards the right one. Something about the concentration one needed to direct on the inner workings of the human body eluded her. It did so now rather dramatically, and she swooned slightly at the thought of the severed blood vessels, skin, fat, and muscle.

"Episkey," she said, and swallowed hard as she pictured those tissues knitting together and becoming whole. It was the wrong spell for such an injury, but the only one she felt confident to even attempt, especially in this mental state. Her arm grew suddenly very hot, and through a narrowing tunnel of vision she saw the two wings of flesh reconnecting clumsily.

When she looked up at Snape again, his wand was drawn.

"No," she pleaded.

"Prepare yourself," he commanded, impatience edging his deep voice.

"I can't," she insisted, feeling weak and ill.

"You must," he said with significance.

She whimpered faintly, and took two staggering steps towards the wall, against which she braced herself. Her hands clenched into sticky bloody fists, she focused her mind, and looked up at him.

He cast the spell silently, and the room disappeared.

The struggle had never been so violent. Snape had determined to push as hard as ever, indifferent to her weakness, and she felt her body trembling with the effort to resist him. Hermione chose the most vivid and uncomplicated of Ginny's memories – those which consisted mainly of tactile pleasure: apples from the burrow's tiny orchard in fall; the warmth of teacups. Snape passed through them as though they were made of dust, and thrust deeper. Hermione thought of a day at Hogwarts – one of several that she had pieced together. He flung it aside. She gave him a first kiss – heated, sweaty, fumbling, straining, and rich with all the flavors of lust's first flowering. He looked it over with indifference, and pressed on. Finally, Hermione again offered him Tom Riddle – every last detail: the joy of a secret and the fear of discovery, the profound sting of betrayal and the crippling guilt. He lingered, as if searching for something more. At long last, and with a stab of guilt she could not mask, Hermione revealed Ginny's most fiercely guarded secret of all: the longing she still sometimes felt for the frightening, fascinating, beautiful boy who had made her feel terror and joy and pleasure and pain in equal parts.

Snape withdrew then, and Hermione exhaled a deep breath of exhaustion and relief, bending slightly at the waist to steady herself.

Snape approached, his wand still drawn, and held out a hand to her. She flinched from him, but didn't flee, and fixed him with an expression of horror and confusion. He greeted it with calm denial, and waited patiently. After a long pause, Hermione placed her trembling hand in his steady grasp.

He rotated her arm gently, bringing the bloody mess into view, and parted the two folds of fabric – the remains of her robes and white blouse's sleeve – carefully pushing the material further up her arm. She gasped with a mixture of pain and surprise; unnerved, even in this circumstance, by his exposure of her skin. He ignored her.

His brow furrowed with concentration, Snape pointed his wand at the ragged, ruined flesh, and began tracing its length, quietly murmuring a spell that sounded to Hermione almost like a song. Her arm went pleasantly cool, the tension draining from the tendons and muscles, and the soft white skin realigning. Satisfied with the result, Snape dropped the appendage suddenly, replaced his wand in his right sleeve, and reached into his pocket, extracting the vials he had placed there before.

He handed the larger of the two to Hermione. She uncorked it and the metallic smell told her instantly that it was Blood Replenishing potion. She downed it with a grimace, wishing desperately for something to take away the nauseating protein-y taste. He traded her the empty vial for a second, which she unscrewed, recognizing it as Essence of Dittany by the dropper. She applied three stinging drips to her angry scar, wincing slightly as the liquid sank in and covered the surface with a layer of smooth skin. She recapped the bottle and handed it to Snape, but he refused it with a barely perceptible shake of his head.

"Keep it with you from now on," he said, and Hermione might have thought it some form of kindness had he not continued. "If you're healing magic weren't so appalling I would not have to diminish my limited supply. As it is, I recommend you devote some time and attention to those spells which might save your life when Dittany is not at hand."

If she not been so terribly afraid of him in that moment, she might have chosen to remind of who had inflicted the wound. She looked away from him instead.

"Am I ready?" she asked, her voice quavering.

"You are," he replied.

She looked up at that, the vaguest hint of scholarly pride managing somehow to glimmer even in this dark and bizarre tableau. It gave her courage to ask him the obvious question.

"Why did you cut me?"

"To determine whether you could Occlude while terrorized and in pain," was his honest reply. "Failing to do so would be doing us both a disservice."

Hermione considered his words, and a look of comprehension dawned on her face suddenly, accompanied by a swooping sensation in her stomach. In that moment, she realized that her treachery, if discovered, would also be his. If her metamorphic guise slipped, if her mind broke, if she panicked and lost her bearings, even for an instant, there would be no other explanation than betrayal.

If she failed, they would die together.

Anxiety, power, responsibility, fear, and a sense of premature guilt all warred together for a moment, and when Hermione straightened her back and drew her wand, it was clear which of them had reigned, and which had faded away. She wiped the tears from her face roughly, and banished her blood from the dungeon floor with a sharp, neat flick.

Snape watched the movement intently, and then returned his gaze to her face. They looked at each other for a moment in silence, an inexpressible understanding passing between them of intertwined fate.

…..

As Hermione left the dungeons she replaced the wards hastily and moved to the classroom door to leave. But when she reached it she paused and then slowly returned to the office entrance. Removing her wand again she traced the air in a series of complex movements, murmuring the accompanying Latin in low tones.

"Fidelis miles, militis fratris" she finished, and the ancient magic shimmered to life.


	14. The Dark Mark

Note: The characters here represented are the property of JK Rowling. Absolutely no profits have been derived from this work, and no copyright infringement is intended.

December 26th, 1996

Hermione careened through time and space, until the frozen ground, wet and sleek with sleet, came barreling up towards her out of the ether below. Long ropes of red hair whipped her face and arms in the sudden force of the violent gale; and a heavy black cloak, trimmed with velvet and embroidered with silver, curled around her shaking body like a fist. She groped towards it in complete disorientation and blindly found the mooring of an offered arm.

She clung to her dark companion, fists and eyes clutched tightly against the wind and cold. At long last she nodded, signaling to Snape that she was prepared to begin their long journey down the shadowy drive to Malfoy Manor.

The massive estate loomed in the distance – the perfect symmetry of a neoclassical façade giving way on the right to the arches and stained glass of a much older gothic structure. Beyond was a tall tower wearing a ring of ornate crenellations like a crown – no doubt the last remaining element of an ancestral castle; each stone impregnated with the weight and grandeur of ancient wealth – one upon another, generation upon generation, century upon century; pressing down into the cold earth.

The meticulously maintained gravel carriageway stretched out before them under a canopy of majestic oaks whose branches swayed and creaked and moaned overhead like the planks of a storm-weary ship deck. Hermione stumbled again, disoriented by their eerie movement, and by the unwelcome potion pumping through her veins.

Its effects had at first been manageable, as if her body were under the impression that a bit of butter beer had been taken, while her brain had failed to notice. But as the minutes passed, and with the aggravation of the relatively long distance side-along apparition, Hermione now found herself barely able to stand up straight, much less walk unassisted. And so Snape bore her forward, roughly but efficiently; and with each wobbly step, the Manor grew taller and more solid – no longer the stuff of rumor and dreams, but an immutable edifice of marble, wood, and rock.

The iron gates burst into swirling smoke as Snape and Hermione passed through them, reforming again into a solid barrier in their wake. The earth beyond was well trodden – more than a dozen different footprints of varying size and depth, all leading towards an enormous stone entryway over which loomed a deeply carved inscription. _Sanctimonia Vincet Semper_, Hermione read, and as she translated the words the beast of fear rumbling low in her stomach stirred, and woke.

She swallowed convulsively. The smell of fire and ice, the crunch of snow and scrape of stone, the bitter cold and pitiless wind assaulted her all at once, suddenly far too potent, and for an instant as she staggered towards the dark stone entrance, gaping like the maw of an animal lying silently in wait, she thought she might lose her nerve.

As they passed under the carving of that simple but bloody sentiment, Hermione felt Snape's hands change position – the supporting grasp on her arm morphed fluidly into a clutch of control at her shoulder blades. He thrust her body forward roughly, away from his, and she couldn't suppress a tiny cry of surprise at the sudden change in his physical demeanor.

With that little exhalation seemed to go all her bodily strength. As they stood in silence, partially hidden away from the shrieking sky, Hermione felt the blood flee from her face and limbs to take refuge in her torso. Her heart pounded so ferociously that she was sure Snape could feel it in his knuckles where he clenched her cloak. Her chest rose and fell in shuddered gasps and her fingers went numb.

It was then that her mind began to reel; thoughts of Crookshanks and of her childhood home, of her parents and of Professor Dumbledore, of Ginny and Harry tucked safe in their beds came to her as if in mockery. That world was where she belonged; safe, quiet, warm. How could she possibly think herself capable of this? What had possessed her? What had she done? Snape had been right – she was a fool; a ridiculous child, and tonight she was going to get them both killed as proof.

Lightning split the howling sky overhead, and Hermione jumped in fright; a wave of tremors rolling over her body in its wake.

"Vengeance," a voice said suddenly, directly into her ear.

The places on her face and neck where Snape's hot breath had touched erupted in goosebumps, and that feeling of rigid heat spread – down her chest and through her belly, along the length of her legs and arms, and to the very ends of her toes and fingertips.

That single word, both salve and spur, worked like a powerful incantation; and when an instant later there was a burst of wand light, and the simpering horror of Peter Pettigrew's face confronted them, bowed with the perpetual pose of cowardly deference, Hermione's trembling hands had grown steady.

She knew him instantly, even after the long years since their last meeting. _Traitor,_ hissed her mind as she forced a look of wide-eyed terror and bewilderment onto Ginny's face. Wormtail smiled a hungry, unpleasant smile, clearly enjoying her distress. He backed away as Snape pushed Hermione forward, and looked her body over with open interest.

"Drugged, is she?" he murmured, breathing heavily through his snout.

He stretched out a small thick hand to touch Hermione's face, but before his waxy skin made contact with the apple of Ginny's cheek, Snape's arm jutted out from behind her head with the speed of a cracking whip. He grabbed the offending appendage, squeezing the bones of the smaller man's fist almost to breaking, and shoved his round body to the wall with sinewy strength. Wormtail made a choked sound of pain and surprise, his small frame crumpling while the artificial silver hand at his side twitched strangely, the fingers growing tight and tense for a moment, before again going still.

"Yes," Snape hissed, "and not yours to touch." He squeezed him harder still until Wormtail emitted a pathetic little squeal, and then released him, pulling Hermione towards him again and moving on, leaving Wormtail to mutter to himself impotently in the dark of the doorway.

Together Hermione and Snape struggled up four short stairs leading to a marble encrusted aperture which opened into a cavernous sculpture gallery. Two dozen eyes – some of stone, others of bronze – watched over the ice-like surface in eternal silence. The white floor was punctuated at regular intervals with obsidian square tiles, giving it the appearance of royal ermine. Hermione's trainers squeaked as Snape dragged her onwards, at first leading her straight through the center of the otherwise silent room, but at the statue of a satyr playing an aulos he turned sharply to the right, unceremoniously throwing open a mahogany door, and shoving her through it.

As they passed through the elegant but unassuming doorway Hermione gasped. The library of the Malfoy home was the grandest she had ever seen outside the walls of Hogwarts. Shelves of books wrapped around all four walls, stopping only for doorways, windows, and the largest fireplace in Britain. Arranged cozily before it was a small collection of furniture – an inviting settee and two high backed armchairs all fashioned in a maroon stained leather and fastened with golden nails that gleamed in the firelight. This room was the antidote to the cold austerity of the sculpture gallery and she wanted more than anything to remain there perhaps forever. But barely a moment passed before she was again being hauled along, past the lovely stone mantle, stained with the soot of countless fires, to yet another door rendered from the oak paneling of the opposite wall.

As the door slammed shut behind them, whatever warmth had crept into Hermione's veins fled as instantly and as absolutely as the snuffing out of a candle. The sound rattled down the stone corridor like a drum roll, and then, eerily, seemed to clatter all the way back to them in an unnatural echo.

"Lumos," murmured Snape, and Hermione went utterly still.

This was a very old, very evil place. To know it so deeply is not an experience unique to magical folk. Muggles too know the inexplicable sensation – the prickling skin and quickening breath – of places that have been bathed in blood. A frozen breeze with no source tickled Hermione's borrowed tresses with the delicacy of ghost's breath, and she jerked her head, casting them aside.

The stone floor was encrusted with the powder-fine dust of geological shifting. It crunched and hissed underfoot with every step, and echoed in all directions. Every natural impulse screamed for Hermione to be silent, and yet they thundered along, the confident thud of Snape's boots a sin in one of hell's holy places.

They reached an iron gateway – the ring handle suspended from a dragon's clenched jaw. Snape moved his wand over it in a silent spell that Hermione couldn't identify, and then gripped it and pulled with effort. The gate slowly dragged open, moaning as it moved. Beyond was a stairway leading down into utter blackness. Each step was bowed and smoothed with the impact of a millennium of footfalls. After far too many, they reached bottom – the very bowels of Malfoy Manor; another world entirely.

Here there were torches, and Hermione counted in their fickle light five different dungeon doors – two on either side and one, massive and ominous, straight ahead. Silver serpents danced around its center, and something about its design struck her as familiar. _The Chamber, _she realized with a start.

Snape cast another silent spell and Hermione listened with trepidation to the lazy sound of a massive lock unfastening. The door swung inward in unnatural silence, and revealed the scene within.

More than a dozen black backs faced her – the lush velvet falling in streams over each set of shoulders. A small delicate figure with a shock of curled black hair – Bellatrix Lestrange; A similar build, slightly taller, with a cascade of white blonde locks – Narcissa Malfoy; a massive body, shoulders as wide as two grown men with a thick mane of reddish gray – Fenrir Grayback. Of these forms she was instantly certain; of the many others she was less sure. Her stomach squirmed as fear and rage erupted within her. Hermione breathed deeply and began repeating a mantra in her head.

_I must not fail… I must not fail… I must not fail._

It was Fenrir who turned first, his nostrils flaring and twitching with the slow movement of his massive head. His pupils, hugely enlarged in the darkness of the underground tomb, fluttered to pinpricks as he gazed at her, exposing the yellow of his irises briefly before they dilated to unnatural size once more. Bellatrix followed his gaze, her mouth exploding into a deranged grin. The other backs turned one by one, and as Snape guided her into their midst, the small gathering parted, revealing beyond… Voldemort.

Hermione had never seen him before; not really. And for this reason she was visited not just by terrible fear, not just by indescribable hatred, but by utter fascination. This being – no more than a mortal wizard – had become through his will and his madness, a legend; a mythological creature; a demon. He stood before them in flowing robes of black – a material like living silk, which shifted with his every breath and movement. His red eyes focused calmly on her face.

"Ginevra," he said softly, "my beautiful girl."

He reached a white hand out towards her, and Snape led her forward, more gently than before. They approached the raised dais upon which Voldemort stood, and Hermione struggled to lift her foot to mount the large disk of marble. The area had the distinct feeling of an altar, set apart as it was from the rest of the room. _The sacrificial lamb, _she thought wildly, swooning slightly as Voldemort's frosty hand closed around her shoulder and the warmth of Snape's grip left her back. Voldemort supported her elbow with alarming delicacy, and peered into her eyes with a look of affection. She broke their gaze, looking with an uncoordinated lurch toward the gathering behind her, searching for one dark man among them. Snape returned her stare with a look of utter placidity; a perfect mask of nothingness; the picture of power – of control. He was fearless.

Voldemort's grip on her tightened, and she began to occlude.

"Give me your eyes," he whispered into her presented ear.

She shuddered, and looked back at him. When their gaze met he yanked her suddenly towards him, and in a motion with which she was now acquainted he grabbed her jaw roughly in an unyielding grip of ice, and invaded her thoughts with brutal abandon.

…

Hermione lay on the marble floor and stared up, her red hair fanned out around her like a bloody halo. There were voices; she paid no attention. Instead she appraised her body, mind, and surroundings; slowly allowing herself to believe that she was, in fact, alive.

She blinked and focused on the dark forms in the domed ceiling above her. The forms grew clearer and brighter in stages until Hermione could recognize what they represented.

It was a vast depiction of the Roman pantheon; each of twelve gods and goddesses arranged in a perfect circle around a sphere of celestial sky. With the clarity of a powerful telescope, the full moon appeared amid the winter constellations, and Hermione was sure that the contents of that black orb changed with the seasons and the phases of the moon.

There was Neptune – his beautiful mane of white hair swirling and surging around him like the waves of the sea; and Venus, her lips parted in invitation, her white hands curled beguilingly before the temptations of her sex; Vulcan, crippled but mighty, clutching a hammer in his powerful, scarred fist; Jupiter, dominant and serene under the boughs of a massive oak; Juno presenting two halves of a split pomegranate, the seeds glistening in the moonlight like beads of blood; Ceres, her face illuminated in flickering torchlight; Minerva aglow with magnificent armor; Bacchus wearing a curious smile, stroking the arching back of a panther; Apollo in laurels, a raven resting in the cup of his hands; Mercury clutching a caduceus before his bare chest; and finally, there was Diana. The moon nestled nearest to her in its central orb – almost within reach. An arrow was laced in her bow, and lay flat across her lap. A massive stag stood behind her, his muzzle just barely grazing her shoulder, his beautiful eyes fixed upon her glowing face with a glint of something like love.

Their magnificent eyes – blue, black, gray, green, violet, amber and gold – swam vaguely over Hermione's tiny body with the regal disconnection of the divine. But Diana's – Diana's stared into Hermione's eyes with unmistakable direction. The two virgins remained locked in silent communion for many minutes, until Diana smiled.

"She wakes my lord," Hermione heard a man say. Voldemort approached noiselessly and looked into Ginny's face.

"Yaxley," he said turning back to the man who had spoken, "help her up."

Yaxley entered the sacred space of the platform and pulled Hermione to her feet. She wobbled and fell against him, winning herself a head-ful of the smell of cigarettes and leather. He grinned at her patronizingly, and righted her again.

"Deatheaters," Voldemort began, stepping down and entering the crowd. Nagini uncoiled herself to follow her master and brushed by her as she passed. She felt Yaxley stiffen with fear.

"Tonight we welcome another generation into our fold," he gestured with his gray hand towards a small gathering of students, each of whom Hermione recognized. "Purebloods all," he said reverently, "believers all," he nodded solemnly, "loyal all," he all but whispered, a hint of threat entering his raspy voice.

Hermione looked at the young faces – most of them gazing in fear and wonder at the Dark Lord, punctuating this intense study with glances of disbelief towards herself. None of them, she thought, could ever have expected to find Ginny Weasley in their midst.

There was Draco Malfoy, Vincent Crabbe, Gregory Goyle, Millicent Bulstrode, Pansy Parkinson – all to be expected; but there were also others, and Hermione counted with dismay three Ravenclaws who she barely knew, and a lone Gryffindor – Cecile Bonaventure. Hermione did not know her well, for she had always kept largely to herself and never, as far as Hermione had seen, ingratiated herself to any group, curiously including Draco's circle. Even now she stood slightly apart, and Hermione wondered what set of circumstances conspired to bring her here. The girl was tall and thin with long brown hair and a serious, pretty face. She was frightened, as they all were, but determined. She even looked, Hermione had to admit to herself, brave.

"Now," Voldemort said and looked back to where Hermione and Yaxley stood, locked together in unfriendly embrace. He pointed his wand at the center of the dais and cast a silent spell. A small wisp of black smoke appeared in the center of the platform which grew, slowly at first and then exponentially faster, until it was a large black fire hovering a foot above the marble surface. The blaze produced heat but no smoke and no sound, and its flames licked and sparked too slowly.

"Draco," he said and reached towards the handsome boy, grown tall and gangly in the last year and cruelly beautiful in the Malfoy tradition.

"Draco Malfoy, son of our most prestigious, most prominent family."

There were glances among the crowd and Hermione saw Narcissa shrink slightly, her terrified face going gray.

"You will have the honor of being welcomed first," Voldemort said with a mirthless smile.

Draco clenched his square jaw and moved forward, walking side by side with Voldemort towards the black fire. He stopped before it and stared down into the blaze, as if in a trance. The Dark Lord circled around it until he stood facing Draco, the flame burning between them.

Hermione saw Draco's thin chest swelling and deflating rapidly beneath his expensive robes, and noticed that his hand was trembling. His lips curled involuntarily in the bratty, cowardly fashion that they had since she had known him first year; since he was a little boy. He struck her then as tragic, and although she hated him, it was a feeling unlike that which she reserved for his father. That hatred was personal, eye to eye, clean; for Draco it was murky with pity, and as now, with a sense of that the world was more at fault than he was. His knees, she saw, were also trembling.

Draco finished rolling up his sleeve, and hesitatingly reached his arm toward the Dark Lord, above the flame. Voldemort extended his arms to the side and then swooped them gracefully down, gesturing with his wand towards the cursed fire, lifting it up by painfully slow inches. Draco's face grew more crumpled and distressed as the feeling of pain intensified until finally the black fire touched his skin. He whimpered and clenched and released his fist again and again. Hermione glanced at Narcissa who stared grimly into the space before her eyes.

"Swear your allegiance to me," hissed Voldemort so quietly only she and perhaps Yaxley could hear.

"I do," Draco emitted.

"You resent me for your father's sake, Draco, I see it in your eyes," the Dark Lord whispered quieter still. Yaxley leaned forward slightly behind Hermione, trying to hear.

"No," Draco whined, now gasping in pain.

"You do. You have no secrets from me, boy; none."

"I swear, my Lord. I swear to serve you," Draco cried, and a tear fell from the corner of his eye and mixed with beads of sweat on his face.

Voldemort watched it with concentration.

"You will redeem yourself and your family to me, yes?"

"I will. I swear I will."

Voldemort's face darkened, and the flames contracted and the burned momentarily white. Draco gave a shout of pain but did not pull away. His whole body shook with the protracted agony but his face grew determined. Hermione watched in fascinated horror, sure that she had never seen Draco Malfoy looking so sincere. He locked eyes with the Dark Lord and nodded vigorously, yet more tears shaking loose from his frosty gray eyes.

"I do swear it to you, My Lord. I do."

It was enough. The flames went dark again, and Voldemort lowered them; and when the black receded from Draco's arm it left a branding in the skin – a smear of ash: the Dark Mark. Draco clutched his arm for a moment, wiped the moisture from his face, and bowed slightly to the Dark Lord.

The other inductees followed with quick succession. None were questioned so vigorously as Draco had been, but it was clear that the Dark Lord was searching each of their thoughts with the same intensity for reservations, for falsehoods, for doubt. Some turned the flame to white almost instantly, others like Pansy, had to sob for mercy before the vow was made – proving their allegiance the old way, with pain.

Finally the Dark Lord summoned Cecile Bonaventure. The girl approached, her shoulders thrust back and her spine severely straight.

"My Lord," she whispered, and bowed her head. The Dark Lord raised the flame to her skin and she winced, but held steady, and then he began to speak.

"Cecile," he hissed. "Cecile, daughter of the Bonaventure line – a house whose blood is nearly spent," his face grew dangerous.

"Yes, my Lord," she replied.

"You have produced a squib per generation for the last five decades, I believe," he bit out through gritted teeth.

Cecile went very pale. "The blood is pure," she whispered.

"But weak," the Dark Lord barked. Cecile jumped.

"Please my Lord," she whispered.

"And what's this I see," he growled. "The tale is more sordid still, for you love your family squib, don't you?"

Cecile's face drained of color.

"Yes, you do. A certain cousin; a child of four. Martin. You love the little squib, Martin. The shame of your family; the disgrace of your line. You love this child."

"I wish to serve you, my Lord. He will be kept secluded, like the others. He can do no harm!"

"He has already done harm!" Voldemort shouted. "His very existence is a grave injury; an abomination! He should have been disposed of at birth like all muggle filth!"

"Please, my Lord, please." Cecile began to weep, her shaking arm still outstretched before her, engulfed in the gauntlet of flame.

"There is no room in these times for weakness of blood, nor division of allegiance," the Dark Lord said, and dropped the flame from her skin.

She registered no relief as the contact abated, and stood rooted the floor, her arm still outstretched, watching the ball of fire float away from her.

"Avada,"

"Please don't!"

"Kadavra!"

Cecile's eyes went wide as the green curse collided with her chest. Her knees crumpled beneath her and she fell to the floor, her head smacking hard against the marble. A small rivulet of blood ran lazily across the cold floor but stopped before it could drip over the dais' edge, for it lacked the propulsion of a beating heart.

Hermione, frozen in terror, stared down at her dead housemate, and began to tremble so hard that Yaxley had to physically hold her up. He swore as she grew heavy in her arms, and dug into her ribs hard as he tried to support her. The pain of his grip awoke hysteria in her and she began to struggle – enraged and afraid beyond her ability to control. He grabbed her hard by her collar and in her panic and terror she swung at him, scratching him deeply under his left eye. He shouted and staggered back, then lurched forward and struck her hard in the face. Hermione fell to her knees, her hands landing squarely in the streak of Cecile's blood on the floor.

"Yaxley!" Voldemort shouted, and the injured man quickly retreated from the dais and into the crowd, clutching his face.

"Fenrir," Voldemort beckoned, and the enormous werewolf approached, his fur bristling, his teeth bared; full of the lust that comes with spilled blood.

"Bring her to me," he indicated towards Hermione as he resumed his place behind the flame. She watched from her position on the floor as Fenrir's gigantic feet and legs carried him towards her. Hermione attempted to stand but the fear and panic and potion were in full swing, and she simply wasn't capable. The werewolf halted her clumsy movements with his massive hands, grabbing her around the chest and pulling her up towards him. When he dragged her towards the flame her feet barely touched the ground.

Fenrir smelled of fresh terror and old blood, and the hands that clutched her ribcage were covered in thick hair – the yellowed nails sharp and jagged; not quite digging into the soft flesh of her torso, just beneath her breasts. If she struggled now, he could tear her in half, or crush her, or rip into her throat. He settled her on her trembling legs, and waited.

"Ginevra," the Voldemort said softly.

"Mmm," she moaned, her arms hugged around her chest, smearing blood on her robes.

"Look at me," he commanded, and she watched his arms move in her peripheral vision, summoning the black fire.

She breathed in raggedly, and tried to focus her thoughts. She had to focus her thoughts. Had to. Had to.

Hermione squeezed her own skin viciously, then felt the clammy contact of the Dark Lord's hand on her left arm. He pulled it from her, towards him, and the heat of the fire glowed on her skin, uncomfortably warm, but not yet burning. With her right hand she groped at her chest, clutched at her heart, and felt something hard beneath her fingers.

It was the bottle of dittany that Snape had given her. She'd shrunk it and charmed it to a necklace, so she would have it with her – just in case. She clutched it, and remembered. She remembered his fierceness and his cruelty, his power and his strength, his ruthlessness and his determination. _Vengeance_, he'd said to her. _Yes,_ she answered him now, _vengeance._

Hermione looked up and flooded her thoughts with Ginny's memories. The red eyes peered at her intently, and Voldemort began to speak.

"Have you missed me?" he asked her softly.

"No," she said with defiance, while at the same time offering up a memory of the chamber; of the possession; of the boy, Tom.

"I think you have," he murmured.

"Never," she said without conviction.

"The youngest child of a family without means," he whispered. "No time left, no energy, no resources; the girl who was an afterthought of a tired couple. You fear you are not as brave as those who came before you, or as steadfast, or as loyal. You let me in – the enemy of your greatest friend – did you not?"

"I didn't let you!" she insisted weakly.

"You did," he replied. "You let me – even when you knew what I was. It was because I loved you, and I love you still. I see how special you are, I see how unique, how brave, and how powerful you could be."

The fire now hovered just below Hermione's skin. Her hand shook but she remained, gaining focus from the pain. She steeled herself, and then did what she most dreaded; she thought of Ron.

"Ah," Voldemort said, his face changing to sadness. "You blame me for your brother's death."

Tears sprung to Hermione's eyes. "Yes," she said, her lips quivering.

"You should not," he replied, and his expression changed to anger. "It was a grave mistake. All pure blood spilt without reason is a terrible waste. Why, if I desired your loyalty, would I allow your brother to be lost?" he asked her, and searched her face.

Hermione didn't answer. Instead she cried silently, and thought of Molly Weasley's anguish.

"Lucius is in Azkaban. That is his punishment for this. I instructed him," he lied, "to spare your family, and he failed me. He suffers daily. Does that not bring you comfort?"

"It does." It was the truth.

Voldemort smiled at her satisfaction approvingly.

"Join us, Ginevra Weasley. Join us and meet your destiny."

Hermione stared into his eyes and watched the black flame change in their reflection to an explosion of white. Her arm felt seared as if by a hot iron but she clenched her teeth, and kept silent. The white flame burned brightly for several seconds more and then flickered out of existence entirely, and for a silent moment there was nothing in the world but the undying remnants of ash on her skin, and the feeling of a werewolf's claws on her body.

Hermione was barely aware as Snape approached to retrieve her from Fenrir's clutches, and as she clamored up the dungeon stairs; barely aware in the corridor and the library and the sculpture hall; of the screaming of oaks, of the sickly lurch of apparating, of familiar smells of the Hogwarts grounds; the walk to the castle, the entrance way and the floo and the spinning staircase. When Snape entered the Headmaster's office, dropped her into a comfortable chair, and began to relate in low tones the events of the evening, she was barely aware.

"My dear," Professor Dumbledore was suddenly saying. "You have done so very well."

She looked up into his kind face and murmured, "He killed her. She's dead."

The headmaster's face grew pained. "I know, Miss Granger. Professor Snape has told me."

"He, uh, killed her," she continued numbly. "Her blood is here," she said, showing the headmaster her sticky hands.

"Yes, I see," he replied and withdrew his wand as if to cast _scourgify_.

"No," she said calmly, and pulled her hands away. "I'd like to use water. I'd prefer water."

"I understand," he replied, and looked to Snape.

"I must give her the antidote to the potion," Snape said quietly.

"Yes, Severus. Please do so."

With that Snape helped Hermione to her feet, rapped her over the head with a disillusionment charm, and led her from the office.


	15. Antidote

Note: The characters here represented are the property of JK Rowling. Absolutely no profits have been derived from this work, and no copyright infringement is intended.

The warmth of the Headmaster's office gave way to the darkness of corridors. Dark corridors morphed into well lit halls. Halls became stairways; stairways became dungeons.

"Just give it to me," Hermione heard herself saying. "Give it to me and I'll go."

She leaned heavily against the damp stone wall, eyes fixed on the ceiling above her.

"Soon enough," Snape replied, setting a deep stone basin on a nearby brewing table.

A roaring fire glinted in its polished surface, and brought uncomfortable heat to Hermione's frozen cheek. Snape cast a spell on the vessel – some variation of Aguamenti – and it filled with clear, restless water.

Hermione watched him silently – watched as he turned towards her and approached her slowly. Then with the disconnected resignation of the recently traumatized, she allowed him to steer her towards the basin. Leaning slightly on the table's edge for support, she plunged her hands into the swirling liquid.

The water was cold and she gasped, the sudden shock of it shaking her mind loose from its moorings. The image of Cecile Bonaventure's unseeing eyes and cracked skull flashed before her and she clasped her immersed hands together tightly. Hermione stared into the basin, watching the blood dissolve and disappear easily…too easily. The sounds of Snape moving about the room grew dim and murky in a roaring rush of blood to her head.

A clean linen towel presented itself before her eyes. She reached out with shaking hands and took it. It was warm and she wrapped it tightly around her frozen fingers, clutching it to her chest. Next Snape offered her a small blue bottle. She knew it was the antidote and drank it without a wince, though it was bitter. Her body grew as steady as her mind was unstable and she straightened, but didn't move.

"Dreamless," she said suddenly. "Please give me some."

"No," Snape replied flatly.

"Goddammit!" she shouted. "Give me some so I can fucking sleep," she hissed at him.

"The costs outweigh the benefits…" he began, unfazed.

"Spare me the discipline for once, Snape!" she barked.

"It is not discipline; it is the truth," he said with warning force. "From one who knows," he added.

Hermione saw the hours that would stretch out before her this night; the restless, tortured, miserable minutes of nothingness. He had the power to spare her that fate, and he was refusing.

"Fine!" she shouted, shoving herself back from the table and stomping towards the flames. "Then Firewhiskey will have to do – it's seen me through before. You must have some now GIVE IT TO ME!"

"No," came his infuriating reply. Hermione grabbed her curls and pulled them brutally, clenching her fists and eyes and jaw as hard as she could. It didn't help; nothing could. The faces of the dead were all around; the rumble of grief deafening. It was intolerable.

With a scream like an animal Hermione opened her eyes. Surging towards the table she grabbed the basin and flung it to the floor – it burst into a thousand pieces. She slammed her fists into the table's surface, pain exploding in her joints and shooting up her arms. The blue potions bottle fell over with the force of her blow and she grabbed it, turned, and stepped towards the fire, preparing to hurl the bottle into the flames.

A spell that Hermione did not know erupted between the flying bottle and the flame that was its intended destination. The glass shattered and splintered and dissolved quietly into coarse sand. The sudden explosion halted her in the progression of her rage and she stared at the spray of miniscule shards sparkling in the firelight, her eyes alight with burning tears that wouldn't fall.

"You must learn self control," said Snape's voice behind her.

"Yes yes!" she shouted mockingly. "Go to class, tend to your studies, watch people die, do nothing, and behave yourself! Please, Snape, do tell me how this is done. How am I to tolerate it?"

"You bide your time," he answered from the darkness. "You do not forget," she heard him cast a spell to repair the basin and banish the glass. "You plan your revenge." The basin slid into place on the table.

Hermione stood in silence for a moment, her hands shaking with the burden of magic and rage unspent.

"Is there anything else tonight?" she asked, wanting nothing more than to escape the room, the castle…the waking world.

"No," he replied. "You may go."

Hermione began her retreat.

"Miss Granger."

She turned to face him.

"You are no coward."

…..

Hermione made hasty if unsteady progress, the soft thud of her trainers producing a dully echoing tattoo. She wore the face of a ghost. Red rimmed eyes peering out from a pallid countenance, glowing unnaturally – cat-like – in the dim of the midnight halls. Her instructions were to return to bed, but she thought of the soft sleepy sounds of her classmates and dismissed that notion. There would be no rest for her tonight, and she felt at that moment that she did not owe Dumbledore her obedience in this matter.

On she walked. Passed the staircase that led to her common room, up to the very rafters of the castle – the astronomy tower where she breathed the freezing air and gazed out over the rolling snowy mountains, her cloak flying behind her in the vicious wind; then down, down, down again to the kitchens and the rustle of house elves.

"A coffee for missus?" asked a tiny male elf whose name she had forgotten.

"Not tonight," she answered him. "Not tonight."

By the stroke of three exhaustion was beginning to slow her in earnest – she had long since abandoned watching her way, and so it was that without her knowledge Hermione stumbled like so many before her upon the Room of Requirement.

What, she wondered upon noticing its door revealing itself, might the Room deduce from my musings tonight? When she turned the knob it was with a mix of desperation and academic curiosity.

The Room stood empty but for a large table at its opposite end. In the light of the moon shining through vast windows Hermione made her way towards it, spotting as she walked the glint of metal. She squinted in the darkness and a fire lit itself in the hearth beyond, illuminating a long neat line of no less than twenty instruments: there were knives and daggers of several sizes and designs – some with harnesses to attach them to the body, others whose blades withdrew into the handle and shot out again at will. There were hair pins of beautiful design that elongated when she touched them – producing a blade like an ice pick. Finally there were three different garrotes – one was made to look like an ornate necklace, another like a small diadem which when pulled revealed the magically concealed chord between two beautiful grips. The last lay limp on the table. Hermione lifted it and immediately it snaked around her arm snuggly but not painfully. She pulled it from her arm and rested it instead against her thigh, finding that it adhered to her similarly there.

Next Hermione reached for one of the smaller daggers – perhaps four inches in length. She folded her left sleeve back and attached the dagger's harness to her arm. Rolling the fabric over it again she inspected her sleeve. Only the very base of the handle was visible against the inside of her wrist. She withdrew the knife quickly and slashed the air once with it, then replaced it in its secret sheath. It was then that she heard a sound.

Hermione turned, drawing her wand and pointing it in the direction from which the shuffle had come. For a moment nothing stirred and her outstretched hand shook silently with fear and exhaustion and the traumas of the evening.

"Is someone there?" she asked quietly. No answer came, but out from behind a distant pillar stepped a tall cloaked figure. White blonde hair fell in silvery sheets down the shoulders to lie against a velvety chest. Hermione drew a sharp breath. It was Lucius Malfoy. _Impossible_, she thought. Lucius Malfoy was a thousand miles away in Azkaban prison. But there he stood, as real as the pillars surrounding them and the flames in the hearth.

"Expellliarmus!" she shouted, but Lucius deflected the spell with a wand produced with blinding speed from the end of his ornate walking stick. He cast the empty wooden housing aside and began advancing on her.

Hermione flew forward.

"Diffindo," she cried and again he sent the curse ricocheting into the distance.

He flourished at her and as she ran Hermione felt the hex graze her shoulder – that the magic had no substance did not occur to her in her fury. Before he could cast again she was upon him. Hermione collided with Lucius, sending them hurling to the floor. After a moment's scuffle Lucius slammed her wrist into the stone sending her wand clattering out of reach. Hermione threw herself after it but felt his weight on her back, crushing her into the floor. She flung her elbow behind her blindly and made satisfying contact with the side of his angular face. With a shout of pain he fell back, dropping his own wand behind him.

Hermione launched herself towards him, forcing him onto his back beneath her. Still clutching his face from the blow, Lucius made no effort to prevent Hermione from tearing the dagger from within her cuff. She raised it up above her head, and without a moment's hesitation thrust it downwards, burying it to the hilt in the broad brocaded chest clasped between her knees. Lucius grunted and bucked beneath her, his hands jutting out towards her face. Again she raised her arm and again she stabbed him. He began to make choking sounds. Again she struck him and this time the blade skittered against bone as it sunk deep into his body.

Lucius' arms clawed and clutched desperately, but with rapidly decreasing coordination and strength. Hermione cast the knife aside, reaching instead around his white neck, squeezing with all her strength. His hands clutch at her own, but then grew very weak, until the arms fell at his sides, and Lucius struggled no more. The gray eyes went dull, and the pounding pulse beneath her fingertips faded out of existence.

Hermione stared down into the dead face and saw tears upon his perfect cheek, but they were not his own. She released her grip on his neck and touched her own face, finding it streaked with moisture. Hermione leaned forward against Lucius Malfoy's lifeless body and sobbed for a long time.

…..

Her legs aching with strain and cold, Hermione rose, backing away jerkily from the bloody man on the floor. She cast her gaze around looking for the wand she had lost. Spotting it not ten feet away she hurried forward to retrieve it. As she bent to lift the wood from the stone floor she heard a sound like blowing sand. She looked back to where Lucius lay and saw that his body was dissolving before her eyes.

"What," she began as the last remains of Lucius faded into nothingness. Hermione stood stunned for a long moment, and then comprehension dawned on her face

Returning hurriedly to the table Hermione withdrew the garrote and let it wrap around her arm. A sound behind her made her turn once more, and once more Lucius stepped forward into the light – his wand drawn, his face cruel.

"No," Hermione said to him. "No. Give me Bellatrix. I want to kill Bellatrix Lestrange."

The white hair morphed to curls of black, the shoulders shrunk to fit the frame, and Hermione greeted Bellatrix' deranged smile with one of her very own.


	16. Black Imperius

Note: The characters here represented are the property of JK Rowling. Absolutely no profits have been derived from this work, and no copyright infringement is intended.

_Miss Granger,_

_ ... you are no coward._

Snape cast a spell to check the time. The hour was late, he discovered, but his night was still young, for a servant of the Dark Lord rests only at his master's pleasure.

Silent strides carried him through to his rooms where he deposited his heavy velvet cloak and ivory mask. Thus unburdened, he returned to the Potion's office.

With the season's batch of winter-malady potions finished and delivered to Madame Pomfrey, the work tables were finally uncluttered. Their only burden now was the two golden cauldrons that sat silent and still, their black contents peacefully resting in magical stasis. For the second time that evening Snape broke through the permeable film that surrounded them like a miniature troposphere. Holding a phial with a delicately formed golden handle, he extracted a small sample, not from the cauldron to his right containing the dizzying but ultimately innocuous brew – the one which had made Hermione Granger so clumsy but had left her so clear headed earlier that evening – but from the small pool to his left; identical, and yet quite different.

Snape held the phial up to the light. The black liquid, density like cold molasses, stirred lazily as he tilted it, but left no film in the areas from which it withdrew. He corked it and sealed it with magic, and tucked it away in one of the innumerable but well hidden pockets on his chest. The phial was charmed to be unbreakable he knew, and this gave him peace of mind. For of all the dangerous potions that he had known in his nearly thirty seven years of life, this was the only one that frightened Severus Snape.

….

The storm was raging still when Snape ventured back out to the grounds and the apparation point beyond the gates of Hogwarts. The cloak he'd chosen to replace the velvet Death Eater's shroud had the benefit of being not only lighter, but free of the Dark Lord's charm preventing it from holding any incantation. Snape's own cloak was imbibed with warming magic which made all the difference in the Scottish winter. He apparated as soon as he passed the threshold of the gate, and continued without pause toward Malfoy Manor.

The door to the Manor was unlocked and uncursed, and there was no Pettigrew to irritate and distract him within. He made quick work of the twists and turns that led to the secret chamber below the grounds, and entered.

Nagini lay at her Master's feet, sluggish and enormously swollen. All that remained of Cecile Bonaventure was that darkening creek of blood, culminating in a grizzly smear.

"My Lord," Snape murmured and bowed, carefully avoiding the gore on the floor with a well executed sweep of his robes.

"Severus," the Dark Lord whispered. "The potion is a tremendous success. You will be vastly rewarded. How soon will the doses be prepared?" He was attempting to conceal it, but the Dark Lord was palpably excited.

"My Lord," Snape repeated. "There are still problems that I am working to resolve."

Voldemort's eyes, alight with anticipation, narrowed.

"What problems?" he hissed.

"I attempted to administer it to the Weasely girl covertly," Snape fed the Dark Lord images of an owl dropping a small dose of the black potion into Ginny's tea with the morning post, "but it appears that diluting it destroys its efficacy."

Voldemort's face crumpled into a grimace of rage. There was a long and terrible silence. Snape kept his mind clear and his face blank, and waited.

In a sudden flash the Dark Lord was on his feet; his wand pointed squarely between Snape's eyes.

"Again!" he shouted – the noise echoing around the empty subterranean chamber.

The Dark Lord looked as though he might cast a curse, but then seemed to think better of it. With difficulty he lowered his wand.

"First, it was impossible to make a potion from any Unforgiveable Curse. Then, it was impossible to make one of the Imperious Curse. It remains impossible to produce it in large quantities. And now, it is impossible to administer it without asking permission!" The Dark Lord was now screaming.

"Tell me, Severus, what use are you to me if you do not give me what I ask?" The red eyes burned with fury.

"None, My Lord," Snape replied.

The Dark Lord seemed taken aback by the frank reply. He paused, and then withered slightly, as if the tirade had made him weary, and sat on his stone throne once more.

"Have you brought the sample?" he asked, his voice dripping with danger.

"I have."

Snape approached, and as he came close Nagini raised her heavy head and darted her thick forked tongue towards his boots. Snape retrieved the phial and reached his arm out towards the Dark Lord.

Voldemort sat motionless for a moment. Standing in this attitude exposed Snape's chest and throat to Nagini who coiled herself into a tense and ready pose despite her fullness. Voldemort seemed to be aware of this danger, and so reached out to take the phial with agonizing sloth.

Snape stepped back quickly, and watched as the Dark Lord held the potion up to the moonlight that shone down from the Divine Pantheon above.

"It must be administered directly," Snape reiterated bravely, for the Dark Lord looked murderous again. "And it does produce the side affects you witnessed earlier in the Weasley girl. The stumbling and disorientation are regrettable, but unavoidable."

"Well that, at least, is of little concern," The Dark Lord replied, his eyes returning again to the potion clasped in his cold hands.

"This is the key to the world, Severus. Do not make me wait."


	17. Bound in Secrecy

Note: The characters here represented are the property of JK Rowling. Absolutely no profits have been derived from this work, and no copyright infringement is intended.

January 3rd, 1997

Hermione 's body lay still and silent on the floor of the Room of Requirement, her massive mane of unruly hair thrown across her face, her chest rising and falling in a rapid, shallow rhythm.

She was dreaming.

_Number 12 Grimmauld Place is black as ash in the rain. Hermione approaches the door and finds it splintered, hanging on its twisted hinges. She pushes, and it swings open with a sound like breaking bones._

"_Ron?" she calls, peering inside, finding the hallway deserted. She enters and calls out again. Thunder rumbles in answer. She looks back at the broken door and sees that rain blowing into the house on the wind, soaking the edge of the hallway rug. She tries to force it shut, but it won't close – the frayed and broken edges simply will not fit the frame. _

_A clang of dishes sounds from the kitchen. _

"_Ron?"_

_Creeping slowly towards the kitchen door she stands and listens. She hears water boiling. She pushes on the wood and peers inside. Mrs. Weasley stares down at a pot on the stove; she stirs it slowly._

"_Mrs. Weasley." _

_Mrs. Weasley does not answer, does not turn. Hermione comes closer. She looks at the older woman's face and clothes – her frizzy red hair and her old apron. Hermione sees that her nails are too long. They are dirty, yellow, broken and tattered. _

"_Mrs. Weasley, please look at me." _

_Her skin is gray; unhealthy. Hermione reaches a hand out to touch her arm. As her fingers make contact with the flowery fabric of the house dress, Mrs. Weasley jerks her head up suddenly, staring at the kitchen wall before her, and screams – a long, unnatural, mechanical sound. The veins in her neck bulge, her mouth gapes enormously; the scream will not end._

_Hermione flees – runs down the hall and into the library. The books are gone and the fireplace is black and cold and she can still hear Mrs. Weasley screaming. Hermione runs to the stairs; ascends them two by two._

_Another dark hallway. _

_She tries the door on her right – the twins' room. The floor feels wrong. It's slippery but sticky. She looks down, and there is blood – on her shoes and hands; in her hair and on her face. The level is rising. Hermione watches it slowly run over the top of her shoe, and feels it meet her ankle. _

_Then there is a hand on her shoulder. Tonks is standing behind her, a wound in her neck gaping like a second mouth. There is no blood – the wound is dry, and her skin is a pale yellow. Her eyes are white as thestrals'. _

"_Hermione!" calls Ron's voice from the hallway. _

_Hermione turns toward the sound, flies across the room and into the hall. At the door to Ron's room she seizes the knob, but it will not turn._

"_Hermione! Help me Hermione!"_

_Hermione pounds the door with her fists. She flings her shoulder into it over and over again until she thinks she will shatter the bones. Ron is now screaming and crying like a terrified child. He is desperate, hysterical, and he calls her name again and again. She kicks the wood as hard as she can and finally begins to tear at it with her nails._

_Ron's screams go suddenly quiet, and Hermione falls to her knees._

"_You," a voice says._

_Hermione turns to face it. _

_Mrs. Weasley stands on the stairs, her arm outstretched, her finger pointing._

"_You," her voice says, but her lips do not move._

"_You."_

Hermione woke with a gasp, clutching the floor around her head instinctively; searching for the weapon that she knew was near. Her fingers closed upon the blade that had slipped from her grasp when she fainted, and rolled to her side with it clutched to her chest.

The nightmares would not cease. It had been nine days. Each night she made her preparations for bed – dressed in her sleeping clothes, brushed her bushy hair, pulled back the curtains and turned down the sheets, and the moment she crossed over into the realm of sleep, they were there; waiting.

There was no solace, no escape, no comfort; nothing else to do but exercise her rage.

Hermione dragged herself to her feet, banishing the freshly appeared visage of Bellatrix with a weak wave of her arm. It was morning. She could tell by the quality of the air and the temperature of the stone. The hallways would soon be infested with a trickle of students making their sleepy way to the great hall for breakfast. She dusted herself off, and stumbled out to join them.

The great hall was abuzz with the gentle chatter of a few dozen voices. There were more students at school for the holidays than usual, for Hogwarts was now regarded as much safer for children than the outside magical world. There was, of course, another simple factor: many students were now orphans.

"Hermione," Harry called, waving to her from the most distant and isolated table in the hall.

"My god, you look dreadful," he said as she finally arrived at his side, wobbling slightly on her feet.

"Do I," Hermione muttered, and began loading her plate with anything edible within an arm's reach.

"What the hell is that?" Harry said.

"What?"

"That bruise, Jesus!" Harry said, reaching his fingers toward her neck which was enrobed in a purple hand-shaped mark. Hermione seized his wrist with lightning speed, and slammed it to the table's surface with a cutlery rattling bang.

Silence descended on the Great Hall as all eyes present turned toward the sound and the odd tableaux at its center: Harry Potter and Hermione Granger locked together in a palpably intense stare, his arm pinned beneath her rigid fingers, his free hand wrapped around the wand at his side.

Hermione woke from the trance first.

"What the hell are you all looking at?" she barked to the nearest cluster of Gryffindors. They jumped in unison, returned to their plates, and the usual din rose up once more. She released her grip on Harry's arm slowly.

"I've been…I've…I'm having trouble sleeping," Hermione muttered through clenched teeth.

"So have I but I don't look as though I've been flung down some stairs."

Hermione glanced around the room quickly, seized a butter knife from the table, and examined the reflection of her throat in its mirrored surface.

"I can't heal this in front of everyone," she whispered, tossing the down the knife. "Will you heal it for me?"

"Not unless you explain."

"Goddammit," Hermione hissed. "I'm alright. I'm not in any danger. I'm not harming myself."

"But someone is!" Harry said, his voice rising.

"Shhh!"

"If you don't tell me what's going on, I won't lift a finger."

There was another terrible, tense pause, and Hermione's face morphed to cruelty.

"How go your lessons of late?" she said, her eyes narrowing. "Need any help from someone far cleverer than you, perhaps?"

Harry's face fell. "Don't do that."

It was half chastisement, half plea. Since Ron's death Harry had vowed never again to involve Hermione or anyone else in His Problems, as he'd come to call the circumstances surrounding his destiny. He had sworn that he would carry on alone, without anyone's help, regardless of the consequences. He had refused to share more than the vaguest details regarding his two lessons with Dumbledore and the Pensieve. To do so, in his mind, was to condemn her to death. It was a simplistic, pigheaded, emotional reaction to his guilt; utterly illogical, and very Griffindor.

"Then don't demand answers of me," Hermione snapped.

He withered, and she softened. "You insist on your secrets, Harry," she said quietly. "You must let me have mine."

Harry stared at his teacup, quietly mastering the wave of guilt and fury that washed over him. Eyes brimming with tears he pulled out his wand, and with a surreptitious flick, healed the bruise on her neck. He then stood, and without a word, left her.

Hermione watched him leave, comforting herself with the knowledge that he would go to Hagrid, and all would be as before by the evening. Her eyes and attention returned to her enormous breakfast, and she began to eat it ravenously, completely unaware of the black eyes watching her every move.


	18. The Final Obstacle

**A note to the reader:** I have altered the ending of this chapter. This story is a work in progress, thank you for your patience and reviews.

February 1, 1997

On the first Saturday in February, the translucent Mr. Twycross floated into the great hall amid a throng of sixth years, deposited his rings on the floor beside him, and commenced the rite of passage with a surprising announcement.

"It has been the determination of the Department of Magical Transportation of the Ministry of Magic, that formal apparition examination dates are hereby suspended. Any witch or wizard over the age of seventeen may request to take the exam at the end of any of these lessons, subject to my approval. I will set aside an opportunity at the conclusion of each class for this purpose. Should you pass, you will be certified for apparition immediately."

A murmur of surprise ran through the room.

Harry looked to Hermione. Her face was stony; her eyes fixed. "Do you think they changed it to—" he began.

"—to give us a fighting chance," Hermione finished.

Harry nodded gravely. The more young wizards were able to apparate, the more likely they would be to escape the Death Eater attacks that had grown so frequent in the last few months as to become inevitable. It was common sense on the part of the ministry, and at the same time, unbelievably disheartening.

"Now," Mr. Twycross said, attempting to silence the crowd with his wispy voice, "let us begin."

Hermione had rarely been so determined to accomplish a single task in her life. She made three times the number of attempts of her fellow classmates, and, in the last effort, very nearly splinched herself.

"I think, Miss Granger, that will do for today," Mr. Twycross said, shimmering over to her quickly and confiscating her ring. "I am very impressed by your tenacity."

He smiled and made off with the object, leaving her standing, rigid and defeated, in sea of mutual frustration.

"Well, you came closer than me," Harry offered, handing over his ring with only slightly less aggravation. "…as usual."

Later that night, Hermione sat in her bed with the curtains drawn around her, and warded them against sound or intrusion. She rose up on her knees, and reached into the secret pocket charmed into the red canopy, and withdrew the velvet sack she kept there. Laying it flat on the blanket before her, she pulled at its strings, and reached inside.

She withdrew three objects. The first: a black leather sheath, no wider than an inch at its base and five inches long. From its tailored edge protruded a lacquered wooden handle that glowed auburn in the soft light of her lumos. She grasped the handle, savoring the feeling of her fingers sliding into place in the series of subtle grooves that cradled them. She pulled, and the dagger slid from the sheath like butter, revealing the thin silver blade, double edged and serrated at its base.

Next she withdrew an amber hairpin with a golden spike which stretched and thickened when she closed her hand around the cylindrical handle, and returned to its original size as she pushed it through her hair, the way she had so often done with her wand. Finally, she withdrew a simple silver garrote, and let it snake around her left arm.

These things had become to her as familiar as her own body, as though they were extensions of her bones and tendons and muscle. Of all the weapons provided by the Room of Requirement, these three had, for whatever reason, called out to her; suited her needs, her tastes, her desires, perfectly.

She lay back against the pillows and cradled the arm wrapped in the garrote – the arm which bore the faint outlines of Dark Mark. After the ceremony had concluded, the blackened skin had begun to fade, until only a shadow was left behind. Dumbledore had informed her, in one of the meetings that now seemed so very long ago, that the Mark would darken with the passage of time. "And when he calls me?" she had asked.

"It will burn as black as the day you were branded."

She squinted at the skin, wondering for the thousandth time what it would feel like when it happened, what it would be like to be summoned… as one of Them.

The Dark Lord and his Death Eaters had been busy, she could tell, for the horrific headlines coincided often with certain symptoms in Snape: a glassiness in the eyes, a tightening of the jaw, a shortening (if it could possibly be believed) of temper. And yet, despite all of this activity, she had no information beyond the news reports and the gossip. She had no purpose; no recourse; no involvement.

It was no surprise that The Dark Lord would not be summoning the young Death Eaters of Hogwarts in the middle of the night. Not only were they underage and undertrained, they were incapable, in most cases, of even leaving the grounds to attend such meetings. But Hermione had hoped that Snape would involve her in some other way – take her into his confidence perhaps; inform her of developments. She had not anticipated that he would adhere, all of the sudden, to the Dark Lord's rules of secrecy that kept each Death Eater an island from every other; isolated, paranoid, unable to form alliances.

She'd thought that if Snape would not share news or information he might train her instead, in some new magic or skill; involve her in _some_ way in the war to which she had pledged herself.

But he had not. She was a child-spy, and that was proving to be just a new variety of impotence.

She pounded the mattress once in anger, freshly enraged at the thought her apparation lesson. Next time she would not fail.

February 8, 1997

"Next time" came on the following Saturday. Hermione had spent the preceding week in the library reading every book, entry, and article available on apparition. She had meditated, as several authors had suggested, for hours on end, visualizing the involved magic in a series of simple, broken down, stages. In short, she had done everything she could think to do.

Mr. Twycross continued the lesson as before, with his rings and his Three D's. He walked between the rows, halting horrendous mishaps before they could take place, and offering essentially useless words of encouragement.

Hermione made her first attempt with too much haste, and failed.

"Fuck," she swore, so loud that Harry whacked her arm.

"Shh!" he said, smiling a little. "You'll get us the most ridiculous detention we've ever had."

Hermione closed her eyes, breathed deeply, went through the steps of the meditation once more, and made another attempt. The room went dark and distorted, images twisting and spinning as they had done on the night at Malfoy Manor, and when Hermione opened her eyes again, tentatively, she found herself standing within the ring that had been several feet before her.

"Shit," Harry swore, just as loudly as she had moments earlier, drawing the attention of a nearby Neville who actually clapped his hands with glee.

Hermione took no notice. She closed her eyes, focused, and tried again, and again she found herself wobbly and slightly sick, but safely located several feet outside the ring, in the spot where she had first begun. By now several nearby students had taken notice, and Mr. Twycross was soon making his way toward her.

"Miss Granger," he said. "Would you please repeat for me?"

Hermione obliged.

"Excellent," he said, clearly somewhat taken aback by the speed of her progress. "Keep working through the class, and at the end of the hour you may remain behind to take your exam."

00000

By the time Mr. Twycross waved his wand over her head, producing a shimmering blue halo that faded to purple, and then disappeared, Hermione was feeling rather ill. He shook her hand, recommended a ginger tea for the nausea, and exited the great hall. And that was the conclusion of the momentous event – a roiling stomach and a bit of bureaucratic sparkle. Hermione smiled to herself - the little grin of satisfaction forming beneath a pair of hollow but determined eyes. _  
_

She heard Snape's voice in her mind, whispering a single word._  
_


	19. The Raven-Haired Girl

Note: The characters here represented are the property of JK Rowling. Absolutely no profits have been derived from this work, and no copyright infringement is intended.

**A note to the reader: **I have altered the end of the previous chapter. This story is a work in progress, thank you for your patience and reviews.

February 14th, 1997

Even with all the ugliness and tragedy in the world, it would seem that love still lived amongst the children of Hogwarts, for the halls were buzzing with all the excitement and foolishness that Valentine's Day always brought. It was a busy evening not only for the students, but for the teachers on whom the unfortunate task of controlling this hormonal madness fell. Amid this frenzied activity, it was easy to understand how the absence of one sixth year student could go unnoticed.

000000

The Iron Legion was known neither far nor wide, but could always be relied upon for a nice quiet, undisturbed drink. Arlin Dregg, barkeep etcetera, was an unassuming, utterly forgettable sort of fellow; a squib with no particular worth, other than to pour drinks and wipe down tables. Most people thought very little of Arlin Dregg, if they thought if him at all, with the exception of a certain select few who knew what he was.

Arlin Dregg was a dealer in information; an accomplished eavesdropper with a keen sense of what might be valuable – things that went rather nicely with being utterly forgettable.

As far as Arlin was concerned, the appearance of a little woman with a deathly pale face and raven hair did not qualify as valuable or even interesting. In fact the only thing worth remarking upon was her youth; a little young for a prostitute, he thought, but then that's what happened the last time the Dark Lord rose to power – dealings got darker, orphans were made, and things got worse in Knockturn Alley, along with everywhere else. He hadn't thought Mr. Cairn, owner of The Iron Legion and keeper of the small inn above it, would have turned a blind eye to that sort of thing. But, then again, times were changing.

Arlin stuffed a rag into a pint glass and turned it vigorously as he watched the raven haired girl creep down the stairs from the inn. When he saw her face his hands slowed, for she had that look about her.

"Excuse me," she said, approaching the bar.

"Miss," he replied, a bit transfixed by her fathomless black eyes. She was not beautiful, but she was very unusual – so fair; so dark.

"I'm looking for some information," she began, lowering her voice. "I have read that you're a man who has information."

"Maybe I have," he said, setting down the glass. "What do you mean read?"

"Articles, books," she replied. "Archives from the Daily Prophet. You refused to give evidence in the trials after the Dark Lord's fall, and were convicted of obstructing magical justice. You served eighteen months under house arrest, and were released when the trials were concluded. They called you 'the canary who would not sing.'"

Arlin straightened and glanced around the bar. It was empty, save for a drunk sleeping in a dark corner. Satisfied that they were alone he leaned forward.

"What of it?"

She smiled an eerie, joyless, wolfish smile. "Are you still a canary?"

"If the price is right."

"And would the price buy your discretion?"

"Eh?"

"If I pay you to keep your mouth shut, will you keep it shut?" she asked, biting out the words venomously.

"You already know the answer to that, don't you, with all you're reading."

"I'm looking for a man named Rowle."

"Big bloke. Blonde."

She nodded.

"He comes in every now and then, him and his…friends."

"And?"

"They talk. I listen."

She looked him over as though calculating something. "How much?"

"Five sickles," he said, not missing a beat.

She lay the coins on the bar and Arlin swiped them into a pocket lightning fast.

"Rowle's got an uncle, sick in Saint Mungo's, visits him every Sunday morning. That's what I know."

Her pale face flushed and the black eyes glistened. "Thank you," she whispered, and moved to the door. She pulled her black cloak close about her, and stepped out into Knockturn Alley.

Arlin watched her through the pub window. The winter air whipped her black tresses around her face, and she trapped them beneath her velvet hood. _Odd,_ he thought, _not like any harlot I've known. _He reached for another pint glass distractedly, and suddenly found himself face to face with Severus Snape.

"Bloody hell!" he shouted as the glass shattered on the bar floor.

Snape hadn't changed. He could still sneak up on you like that; rise up out of nowhere like the Prince of fucking Darkness.

"Snape!"

"Dregg," Snape said, icily calm.

Arlin peered over Snape's pointed shoulder to the corner where the drunk had slept. It was empty. He could kick himself for being so easily fooled, especially these days.

"Th-that's a nice trick."

"What did you say to the girl?" Snape demanded quietly.

"Now Snape you know how I do business," Arlin said, raising his hands before his chest in defense. "The chit paid me fair and square. Once I take the money that's that." Snape simply stared in his horrible unnerving way. Arlin squirmed, and tried to reason. "Y-you got your benefit from that in the past didn't you? I never said nothing to the ministry about you, not a—"

Before Arlin could finish, a pale hand darted out and seized his collar, slamming him onto the bar and holding him there. And then a dagger was pressed against his throat.

"Don't, please don't!"

"Silence," Snape barked, and Arlin went still.

"Now, tell me, Arlin, as a man of your profession, what would you miss more, an ear?" He moved the blade to Arlin's ear, eliciting a desperate whine. "Or an eye?" Snape brought the blade to hover millimeters from Arlin's left pupil.

"You wouldn't," Arlin gasped.

"I have," Snape snarled, baring his teeth.

Arlin Dregg whimpered, and then told all.

0000

Knockturn Alley was full of activity. Reports of an outbreak from Azkaban Prison had been roundly denied by the Ministry of Magic, but anyone who wished to know the truth simply needed to spend an evening here, in this dark corner of magical London, where the faces of those who were still safely under lock and key were bound to show up somewhere.

The Ministry was losing its grip, not just on the truth, but on the nation. Businesses that had before been forced to cloak themselves in secrecy now opened their doors wide in the light of day, and places that had not been in operation since the end of the First War had returned. Borgin and Burkes abandoned their policy of keeping irregular hours and curtained windows, and Morrigan and Sons, specializing in curse magic and rare forbidden books, stood proudly next door at the corner of Knockturn Alley and Hawthorne Lane, as it had once done so many years ago. There, the dark haired girl turned left, heading in the direction of The Leaky Cauldron.

Snape followed her, watched as she darted into little lanes and doorways, checked her vantage points, mapped her hideouts. She was clever and resourceful, but inexperienced. She was making the novice spy's first and most common mistake: the belief that no one watches the watcher.

Finally she reached her destination, passed through The Leaky Cauldron and into the Muggle streets beyond. From there it was a short walk to Purge and Dowse, Ltd. He watched as she entered the department store, and disappeared into the magical hospital which its shabby facade so well concealed.

Snape wrapped himself in his cloak, backed into a doorway, and waited.


	20. The Blood-Oath

Note: The characters here represented are the property of JK Rowling. Absolutely no profits have been derived from this work, and no copyright infringement is intended.

February 16th, 1997

Hermione rose early on the following Sunday, when the sun was just nestling in the valley between the tallest mountains in the distance beyond the lake. She dressed in her warmest robes, so dark and voluminous that they concealed, she fancied, her very soul. She passed out of the dormitory, leaving the warm sleepy snuffles of her housemates behind.

Hermione made her way through Hogwarts' silent hallways to the familiar stretch of stone wall which began to crumble and change as she approached. She turned the handle and pushed, and entered the Room of Requirement.

Gone was the cavernous hall with its stone floors and tall ceilings. Gone were the table and the weapons and the torches. Gone were the enemies whose deaths had brought such catharsis. All that remained, all that she required this morning, was a small portal in the opposite wall. Hermione ran towards it, her cloak billowing out behind her as she moved, and disappeared into the little tunnel, leaving nothing but a flourish of robes and a crackle of magic in her wake.

Miles away, the door to the linen cupboard of The Iron Legion Inn creaked open ever so slowly, and the raven-haired young girl stepped tentatively into the hall. She looked right and left and listened, and then proceeded down the stairs.

The bar was deserted, as Knockturn Alley would have been if not for a few beggars and drunks. The Leaky Cauldron was a bit more cheerful with its crackling hearth. It warmed the girl for a teasing moment before again she ventured out into the freezing cold of Muggle London. She made swift progress to Purge and Dowse, Ltd, into which she vanished without a moment's hesitation.

Inside, all was chaos – well managed chaos, but chaos nonetheless. The girl proceeded toward a large waiting area, dodging and skirting mediwitches and mediwizards and the patients they ferried as she went.

She picked through the rows of seats and the small sea of mildly ill and mildly injured witches and wizards who occupied them. Magical triage was much the same as its Muggle equivalent – those who were at risk for loss of life or limb went straight through, anyone else had to wait. The girl took a seat in the corner with a clear view of the entrance. She curled herself up, quietly cast a disillusionment charm over her cloaked body, and went still.

00000

Thorfinn Rowle cursed nastily as he sat up in bed. He cast aside the sheets and blankets and stood, stretching his huge arms over his head, seemingly immune to the chill in the small dingy room. Cold and damp was a state of being for the fallen aristocrat. He could still remember a time when house elves bustled about the old place, before most of them had been sold off for gold. The days of tea in bed were long gone.

His mother had wondered quite shrilly whether gambling was an inherited disease shortly before her death. Thorfinn had considered the question many times since then, but halted the conversation in his mind at the philosophical level. It was never allowed to interfere with his recreation.

He dressed quickly and shouted for Gnarl, the last remaining elf in the historic house of Rowle. Tea was brought, and sausages, and Gnarl's vile but rather useful hangover concoction. Thorfinn threw it back without a wince, so familiar was the taste, and so preferable was it to the agony it banished. He donned a pair of impossibly worn dragonhide boots, and began the journey to visit dear Uncle Mathis.

Mathis was a pompous old fool. The only difference between him and Thorfinn's own father was a much better relationship with Lady Luck. She'd favored him enough over the years to make his estate worth something, here at the end, and Thorfinn intended to secure his piece of it, even if it meant spending every Sunday morning in that foul hospital, located even more repulsively in a filthy Muggle gutter.

Dressed as well as could be managed after a very late evening, Rowle stretched enormously once more, and made for London.

000000

"Good morning," greeted the mediwitch at the triage desk.

"Mathis Rowle," Thorfinn grunted, putting a nice dent in her pretty smile with his nasty tone.

"And you are?"

"His nephew," he snapped, his head smarting with the rise in volume. He'd have to speak to Gnarl about his tonic's efficacy. If he couldn't be as snappy and rude as he wished, he might as well stay home.

"Room 7, third floor down," the mediwitch said, shifting her parchments. He turned without a word of thanks, and commenced the unattractive errand.

He emerged again a mere twenty minutes later with his spirits much improved. Old Mathis' mind was going with spectacular speed, and it was nothing at all to get him to part with fifty galleons. The weight of the coins clanked comfortingly against Thorfinn's enormous thigh as he made his way toward Knockturn Alley.

He found the doors of The Mata Hari open as usual – the place was never closed and never empty, for its temptations were far too alluring. It was part whorehouse, part gambler's den, part bar – a sin for every taste. The moment he darkened the door, Scarlett, his preferred whore, made a beeline for him.

"Rowle," she crooned, bearing the flesh of her corseted cleavage.

"Not this morning," he said with a haughty wave of his thick arm.

"Flush, are you?" she asked, a bit impolitely he thought. He stepped towards her threateningly and she cowered.

"Mind that fucking tongue of yours," he growled, "for now anyway. We'll see what I have left for you later on."

Scarlett brightened mechanically, the glamour shimmering like a protective shield before her true face. She wished him luck with a hollow smile and retreated again into the shadows.

0000

Twelve full hours later, Thorfinn Rowle found himself unable to make good his promise to Scarlett – for two reasons. First, he had no money, and second, he couldn't have bedded her if he'd wanted to, so disgusted was he with the unfairness of things. Not that the latter was of much consequence; while some men found comfort in the arms of whores, Thorfinn had always preferred a good and nasty fight.

He burst out of the small gambling parlor and into the bar, and ordered a double dram of Ogden's Old. It wasn't enough to make him drunk, only to make him a little crazy. Ogden's was known to have that effect, along with dulling one's pain. He plunked the glass down on the counter, and stomped out of the bar and into the night.

His rage was building nicely – he felt it rumbling through his veins, warming him up, as he thundered along Knockturn Alley. He made a random turn, and continued his ramble without thought or plan, simply following the path that his feet chose for him. The boots thudded against the snow slickened cobblestone, and then suddenly stopped.

He looked up and around the dead end into which he had unknowingly charged. He cursed again, his gruff voice ricocheting off the stones, and turned to find the way blocked by a small cloaked figure.

"Stupify!" it said, and Thorfinn flew back against the brick wall behind him, his head smacking hard against it. He slumped down to the ground, unconscious. The small figure approached him where he lay, grabbed him by the arm, and Apparated.

With a crack, the two bodies slammed to earth in an isolated clearing somewhere east of London. The sleepy town was silent, the landscape dotted with only a handful of distant glowing lights. The quarter moon shone down softly, giving shape to their dark forms.

Thorfinn stirred sluggishly, slowly coming to after his crack on the head. His movement went unnoticed by the small figure beside him, who gave a great whine of agony as she rolled onto her side. She tore down her velvet hood to reveal a head of raven hair, and pulled the hem of her long black robes up over her knee, exposing a vicious rip in the skin of her thigh. It was a splinch wound – deep and grizzly. Her shaking hands darted into the collar of her robes, and produced a tiny bottle on a silver chain. With a whispered incantation she expanded its size until the vial filled her palm. She withdrew the dropper with difficulty, and dripped some of the liquid on the awful gash.

It sizzled and stung, but that was nothing compared to the pain of the blow that fell across her face. Her body went limp as her mind struggled to recover from the force of it. As the taste of blood filled her mouth she grabbed for her wand.

"Expelliarmus," Thorfinn barked, and the wand flew into the darkness.

She watched it fall, her eyes wide with terror.

Thorfinn climbed on top of her, pinning her legs down with his weight, and pressing her arms to the grass beneath her.

"Who the hell are you?" he asked, peering curiously into her strange pale face. She struggled and he backhanded her, hard.

He peered at her a moment longer, and then seemed to make some decision. He reached down between their bodies, and squeezed the thigh that he'd seen she had splinched. She shrieked in pain, and he smiled. This wasn't exactly what he had been hoping for, but it would have to do.

"I'm going to torture you," he growled, "and then I'm going to kill you."

She writhed against him, her face a rictus of fear and pain. Thorfinn raised his eyebrows as he watched her hopeless little fight. She sure did have a lot of strength in her, he thought, for one so small. He raised his wand and pointed it at her desperate face.

"Crucio."

The girl's chest arched up in agony, every muscle rigid with excruciating pain. She could not even scream the suffering was so intense. Thorfinn released the curse, and she emitted an animal moan and a series of frenzied breaths. A sheen of sweat erupted on her brow.

"What the hell?" Thorfinn said, and the girl's eyes flew open in alarm. She looked right, to where some of her raven hair was pinned beneath Thorfinn's large fist, but the hair was raven no more. It was brown and curling.

Comprehension dawned on Thorfinn's face. "You're Hermione Granger, that little mudblood bitch! 'Best friend of Harry Potter,'" he mocked, sadism transforming to opportunistic delight. He leaned away from her, pulled his sleeve up to his elbow, revealing his Dark Mark.

His hand hovered over it, centimeters away from her ruin, when suddenly there was a thud as a pair of clasped fists struck Thorfinn in the side of the head, sending his body and his wand flying. Thorfinn rolled off of Hermione with a shout, his ear ringing horribly, and looked up to find Severus Snape advancing on him.

Thorfinn stood, adrenaline overcoming the throbbing in his skull. Disoriented, he made a grand swing at Snape who darted away, returning the attempted blow with a sharp jab to his kidney. Thorfinn grunted and bent, and made another uncoordinated grab. Once again he failed to make contact. Then there was a deep _thunk,_ and Thorfinn felt the strange and foreign sensation of a blade being thrust into his chest. He looked down to the place where Snape's clutching fist met the lower apex of his ribcage, just below his sternum. The fist twisted, and that's when the pain overcame all else. Thorfinn gasped, a horrible ragged sound, and dropped to his knees. Snape pulled the blade away, and stepped back, and watched as Thorfinn Rowle bled to death at his feet. With immense difficulty, Hermione hauled herself up and stumbled backward, coming to rest against a nearby oak tree.

Snape stood frozen for a long moment, breathing heavily. Hermione leaned against the wood and panted, her eyes darting between Rowle's lifeless body and Snape's unmoving one. Finally, with a slow, terrifying, almost robotic movement, Snape turned his head towards Hermione. He was as pale as marble, the eyes aflame with a rage she had never known.

Her stomach dropped. She got that cold and terrible feeling, hugely amplified, that she had felt the moment before Snape had attacked her in the potion's office so many weeks before. Her eyes went wide as she noted with a knee weakening pulse that he was actually trembling with rage.

After an eternal pause, Snape slowly closed the distance between them, his black cloak floating behind him in an unearthly manner. The sliver of his white collar gleamed in the soft moonlight, as did his right cuff. The left hand still clutched the bloody knife, and the long fingers curled around it were smeared with crimson gore. A gust of wind curled up from nowhere, and stirred the grass before his advancing feet and the long lank hair that hung around his face.

The insane desire to scream rose up in Hermione's throat as he came closer. Her lip quivered, and she gripped the tree behind her.

He paused a few inches before her and then, with a movement like a pouncing cat, crushed her to the tree, pinning her to it by the throat. Far above her head, the bloody hand stretched up and rested against the bark. His chest was an inch before her eyes, and the hairs on Hermione's neck and arms stood up with the proximity to him, and to the magic that crackled around him like an invisible aura.

"I am trying," he began, "to decide whether or not to kill you."

His voice was like rolling thunder.

"I am weighing your potential value against the price of your stupidity." His fingers contracted, momentarily sealing off her airflow. She remained still, too frightened to resist. They slackened again, but only slightly. He breathed deeply somewhere above her head as though trying to master himself.

Suddenly, Snape shifted his weight backward, his bloodied hand sliding slowly down the surface of the tree as he lowered his glittering eyes to hers.

"You will not disobey me."

Hermione nodded, the movement inhibited by his iron grip. Then his hand was gone from her throat, and when he brought it back down to her face again there was a small incision in his thumb which bled freely. He waited for her eyes to return to his, and then pressed it against the split in her lip, producing an eye watering sting. She gasped as he dragged it down her mouth to the curve of her jaw, and the place where their blood had married tingled and grew hot. Before she could comprehend the oath she had made, he seized her roughly by her robes and Apparated them away.


End file.
